


mea ‘ē kupanaha

by osointricate



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Stranger Things AU, all the kid's ages are made up and the timeline doesn't matter, de-aged kono, hawaii five-0 level violence, steve and cath never dated, stranger things level horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 23:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 45,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14296197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osointricate/pseuds/osointricate
Summary: When Sara Diaz mysteriously disappears with no leads, the Five-0 family of all ages investigate. Chin is desperate and starting to see signs in strange places.  While the adults run down every lead they can find, Grace and her friends find a boy in the woods that can move things with his mind, and teenage Kono and Adam search for their missing friend Jenna.  Meanwhile, Steve woke up with a persistent migraine that hasn't really gone away, and Danny follows a hunch that leads him down the path of government cover ups and Steve's past before the McGarrett's adopted him.During the investigation, they all find that their stories are wrapped up all in the same strange mystery.Stranger Things AU





	1. Art and Fanmix

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. I messed up Oahu's geography so just uh. Roll with it, please. I made up a park and a whole jungly-wooded area where there's actually fancy houses of a Honolulu suburb. Unless you are familiar with Oahu, it's not going to bug you. If you are, I'm sorry.
> 
> Also, just for a general purpose, Steve and Cath didn't date and, in fact, don't know each other. Steve and Danny are an established relationship and in my head while writing was they had been together for awhile, though I didn't write any of that.
> 
> THANK YOU to my beta reader pterawaters, and also my artist. She made an excellent fanmix. I'm listening to it right now. YOU SHOULD TOO.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

[Fanmix cover and playlist masterpost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14296005) by [pterawaters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters)

 

[Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/pterawaters/playlist/1p5tnIugJ4L8pXCj9I2Ibr?si=02tT00xyQ0yimlySbjAxSA)


	2. Chapter One

Grace  
~  
It was clear since Danny moved into Steve’s house that the beach in the backyard was the place for all of Grace’s friends to hang out. It was November - which meant her mother’s annual trip to visit Jolly Ole’ England and Grace was at her father’s full time - and Grace and her friends would be known to spend their afternoons on that beach, soaking up the sun, ignoring their homework, and letting their feet sink into the sand as the waves hit their ankles. Her dad had only moved in the summer before, but already that beach held so much meaning to her.

Except when it rained.

A few rainy days ago, they unanimously decided that being in the house where the adults - and more notably Charlie, precious to Grace, not so much to her friends - could find them was not ideal. Steve had offered that they could clean up the landing in the garage and ever since it had been their rainy day retreat.

Grace had to admit they had made it pretty nice up on this landing. It wasn’t like they had complete privacy, as anyone could walk into the garage and see most of the landing, plain as day, but it was enough of an illusion of privacy that they all brought chairs and tables and adopted a few of Steve’s old things and were even talking Steve into running power up there so they could have video games and much needed plugs to charge their phones.

“Will, it’s your turn, you’ve got six seconds, the kobold has spotted you. What do you do?”

“I, uh… I… I…” 

“Sara’s down!” Billy spoke up. “You could heal your teammate...” 

“Do what you want, Will,” Sara told him. “I’ve got a few more hit points left. I’ll be okay.”

“See! We’ve almost got the kobold down!” Grace argued. “One or two attacks away and he’s down, and we aren’t even to the real bad guy, yet.” 

“You don’t know that!” Billy shot back. “Sara could die!” 

Grace ran a hand through her hair. This was the most stressed out she’d been in awhile. A few rainy days ago, back when Billy Hanamoa offered to run a game of Dungeons and Dragons for them all, she was skeptical. Even Will Grover, who was predisposed to like all things nerdy and dorky, was hesitant. But Billy wove a tale of mystery and adventure and Grace had to admit she was having tons of fun. 

And it wasn’t even raining today.

“I… I…” Will stuttered. He looked towards Sara with wide eyes. 

“It’s okay,” Sara said. “You can attack.” 

“Too late!” Billy said. “Suddenly through the corridor you hear an echo roar. The floor vibrates below your feet! The kobold backs away, looking scared. It takes a few steps away from the roar, before turning around and running towards the way you came. All of you turn to look over your shoulders and blam!”

Billy slammed down a new miniature into their hand drawn map of the dungeon. A monstrous thing, twice the size of the golem’s miniature, with snakes coming out of its head like medusa. 

“The demogorgon blasts through the locked door! He’s angry from being awoken from its slumber! It takes a long look at you, Sara, sensing your group’s weakness first, and lunges to attack!”

“I use lay on hands on Sara!” “I throw a dagger at it!” Both Will and Grace shouted at the same time. Sara’s mouth was wide, looking back and forth between her party members. 

She held up her hands. “I… I… don’t know what to do!”

“That’s okay,” Billy said. It was clear several games ago that Sara was better suited at the roleplay aspect and less at the combat aspect of the game. She was a sweetheart at nature, and hated hurting anyone, fictional or not. “Your teammates acted Sara... Will… roll your dice to see how much you heal her. Grace, roll to attack.”

She grinned and took a deep breath and threw the dice and over the table it flew, over the edge of the landing, and down with a plunk on top of the Marquis below. All at once they scrambled for the ladder, all rushing to go down at once, to see what it was she ending up rolling. Billy had a strict rule that the roll counted, no matter where it landed.

That’s when Danny opened the door to the garage, swinging it open with a squeal. “Hey, Will, is your phone dead? Your dad said he’s called you four times!”

They all paused on the steps to look at Danny with wide eyes. 

“Yes sir,” Will answered. “About an hour ago. I’ve been using the internet to look up stuff and it died.” 

“If we had some power up here, we would have this problem…” Grace sing-songed, hinting strongly at something they’d begged for for weeks.

“Guys, it’s almost eight, how long have you been stuck up there?”

Grace shrugged. “Since this morning?” 

Danny shook his head, “I mean there’s a beach outside, but okay. Glad you’re all safe and having fun. But, Will, your parents want you home. Maybe we should break it up?” 

“Aww, man,” Grace groaned. Billy let out a big sigh and Sara looked disappointed. Will looked like he wanted to argue, but everyone knew he loved his dad too much to push a curfew. “We were so close to beating the boss, Danno!” 

“You can beat him later, Monkey, come on. Pretty soon Meka’s gonna call for Billy wondering where he is.”

Grace rolled her eyes, “Everyone knows we’re all here.” 

“I don’t care, evenings over, sorry guys,” He said, making a ‘move it’ motion with his arm towards the outside.

“It’s okay, Mr. Williams,” Sara said. “Uncle Chin will wonder where I am, too.” 

They made their way down the ladder and out the door. Will, Billy, and Sara all picked up their bikes, and strapped on helmets to ride their routes home just like they had many times before.

“I want you all to text Grace, let her know you got home, okay?” Danny told them as he walked up the walkway towards the house. “See you all later!” 

Grace walked them all to the street. 

Billy grinned. “I guess we’ll see what happens next time.” 

“Maybe we can finish this last big battle after school tomorrow?” Will asked, hopeful. 

Sara shrugged. “I’ve got nothing tomorrow.”

Grace grimaced. “I’ve got cheerleading rehearsal.” 

Will and Billy rolled their eyes dramatically. “When are you going to give up and admit you’re not a jock, but a nerd like the rest of us?” 

“When are you going to realize I can be a nerd and a jock at the same time?” She shoved Will a little and Will grinned at her. Sara and Billy shared a look. Whatever was between Grace and WIll was going to turn into something before they graduated, for sure. “Besides, you boys play baseball!” 

“Not the same thing!” Billy said, throwing a leg over his bike. Will and Sara joined him, and they were off.

“Whatever!” Grace yelled after them. 

Sara stopped and turned around. “Don’t listen to them. They’re dumb boys.”

“Us girls gotta stick together,” Grace said with a wink.

Five-0’s kids were a close group, and Will had been a great third musketeer to Grace and Billy’s duo a few years ago, but Sara’s addition over the last summer had been a bit of fresh air that Grace hadn’t expected. She didn’t realize how much she liked having another girl around. One that wanted to try out for cheer next year, and one that encouraged the boys to try girl things too. Things they enjoyed like rom coms and painting nails. She was a year younger than the rest of them, but she was one hundred percent one of them.

“Us Five-0 kids gotta stick together,” Sara said back with her own wink.

Grace laughed and waved as she took off behind the boys. 

The light at the end of the driveway flickered, and little did Grace know that would be the last she’d see of Sara for a long time.

~~~

 

???  
~  
He had spent most of the day escaping. For now, he was starving. He had been starving for several days now. They always kept food from him before making him to go into the black, and into the black he went. 

The smell of food was on the breeze, a truck full of it. There were a few tables with some people, but not many. The truck looked mostly empty and he made a break for it across the small lot, and jumped into the back of the empty truck. There were fryers and a stove, but there was a whole tray of rice. He lunged for it, grabbing a whole handful and stuffing it in his mouth. Then he saw the bottle of some kind of liquid. Grabbing it with glee, he opened and downed a few gulps before turning his attention back towards the rice.

“Hey!” Came a voice. He turned quickly to find a large man staring at him from outside the truck. “What do you think you are doing?” 

He looked around, hoping for an exit, but only found the window over the serving trays. He started to go for it when-

“Ah! Don’t even think about it!” The large man did something on the outside of the truck and the window awning slammed shut. He jumped at the sound, and stared, wide eyed up at the man. “Who are you?” 

He said nothing. 

“Did you break out of an ambulance or something?”

His eyebrows furrowed.

“The medical gown,” the large man said. “Like you came out of the hospital.” 

He looked down at his shirt. He supposed it looked out of place.

“Who do you belong to, little kane?”

He said nothing.

“If you’re hungry, I can get you a plate,” the large man said. “Are you hungry?” 

He nodded. 

“Well, a’right then. I’m Kamekona. What’s your name?” 

He said nothing again, only took a step back into the truck, even with nowhere to go.

“...okay. Let’s get you some of the good stuff. Do you like shrimp?”

He shrugged.

“Okay. Let’s find out, yeah?” 

~~~

 

Kono  
~  
Kono let herself into the house and stepped into the kitchen with a groan. It was a little past nine and a school night and the squawk of the storm door was sure to give her away. Her cousin was going to read her the riot act for sure. Moving in with him after her mom had gotten sick was the right move. Her mother and father went to the mainland for special care, leaving teenage Kono in the care of their nephew, Chin. Chin was a chill guardian most of the time, and was trying to encourage her back into surfing, but her heart wasn’t in it. She would much rather spend time at the bluffs with her friends for now. She was still a junior. It wasn’t like she had to decide her whole life today.

But it was after nine and - since she got in trouble for coming in well after three am two weeks ago - her curfew had been a strict one. 

Chin was on her in an instant from the other room, but not for the reprimand she was expecting. 

“Is Sara with you?” He asked, worry written all over his face.

“No…” Kono shook her head, sitting her keys down on the counter.

“Sometimes you pick her up when she’s stayed late at Steve and Danny’s…” He tried again. “Are you sure?”

“I think I’d notice an eleven year old in the passenger seat,” Kono said. She pulled out her phone and checked to make sure. “Besides, she would have called and asked for me to. She always does.”

Chin let out a ragged breath and ran a hand over his face. Kono bit her lip, worried. Last time she saw him this stressed out, his wife had died. Abby walked in the kitchen, phone in hand, and sighed.

“She didn’t go over to the Grovers either.”

“Sara’s missing?” Kono asked, caught up to why the worry.

“Yeah,” Abby said with a frown. 

So much of her life had changed in such a short amount of time. Her mother got sick, she moved in with her cousin, she learned she had a new cousin in little Sara, and Chin started dating Abby. She was playing step-mom to Sara, but fell into more of an Aunt role to Kono - something of which Kono was thankful for. Kono knew Chin was reeling from it all too. They had shared that much with each other after their make up following the three am incident. There was a lot going on… they really didn’t need something to happen to Sara.

“Where have you been?” Chin turned on her. 

She took a deep breath, alibi ready. “Studying with Sam and Jenna.” 

“Right,” Chin said with a disbelieving nod. Kono felt guilty, but Sara was the priority right now anyway. 

“She rides home through the park, and then up Palm Ave, to here.” 

“Yeah,” Chin said. “A route she takes almost every day.” 

“Well,” Kono said, grabbing her keys. “I’ll go drive it, see if I see her.”

Chin nodded. “I don’t want you getting out of the car.”

“Cuz… I’ll be-”

“Kono,” He cut her off. She had heard that tone twice before. It was his ‘I mean it’ tone. 

She nodded, and didn’t argue again. “I’ll just drive it.”

Abby turned and grabbed her own keys off the counter. “I’ll go to the park. Lou’s meeting me there anyway.” She turned to Chin. “Stay here if she comes here. Call Steve and Danny, they’ll want to know.” 

Chin nodded. “I hate not doing anything.”

Abby grasped his arms, and Kono watched the two of them as they got close, and Abby comforted Chin. Not for the first time since Abby showed up in their lives did Kono find herself thankful for her. Chin deserved some good in his life.

~

The drive around Sara’s route, and the few more side streets around the neighborhood, yielded no results. Kono was about to expand her search another block wide when her phone went off to alert her of a Mailie Amber Alert. She had to pull over and panic for a minute.

This was real.

Adam called her a few moments later. 

“I just got an amber alert… is it your Sara?” he asked.

“Yeah, Adam. Will you come help look?” 

“I don’t think your cousin will like that very much.”

“He’ll understand if it’s for Sara.” 

“Then come pick me up, I’ll come help.”

“You sure your dad won’t mind?”

“My dad is too busy with work to care where I am; you know that.” 

~

Kono had swung by to pick up Adam, but before they got back to Sara’s last known route, Chin had called her to come to Five-0’s headquarters. They got their visitors badges and marched right up the stairs to the bullpen. There was a crowd of people surrounding the computer table. It looked like the gang was all there. A quick glance into Danny’s office told her Danny dropped everything and brought Charlie too. 

And Chin. Chin’s face fell angry at the sight of Adam. “What’s he doing here?”

Kono held her hands up. “He wants to help look for Sara.” Chin made another face. “I swear! He wants to help.”

“She’s right sir. What can I do? Is there a search party for her yet?” 

Chin sized him up for only a moment longer before, “Yeah. There’s one forming in the park.”

“We already told you!” Will said from behind him. “We all got through the park okay! She turned left, we turned right, like always!” 

This was real. This was happening. Her cousin was in real danger.

“We heard you,” Lou tried to calm him. “There’s a chance she went back into the park. Maybe she dropped something, or decided to head back to Grace’s?” 

“She would have texted me she was coming back,” Grace said. 

“I don’t know,” Danny added. “Will’s phone was dead. Maybe hers was too.” 

Grace, Will, and Billy all let out frustrated sighs. Everyone was worried, but Kono knew Sara’s friends would be too.

“That park leads into the woods,” Chin said with a heavy sigh. Everyone tensed up at the thought of Sara out in the woods alone.

“We’ll head to the park,” Kono said. Chin opened his mouth to argue, but she beat him to it. “If there’s a search party, then I’ll be safe. Lots of cops! Besides, I’ll be with Adam.”

“Right,” Chin said again, sizing Adam up again. Kono felt Adam stand up straighter. 

“On your way, take the kids by our house,” Steve said.

All three kids spoke up immediately. “We can help!” “I wanna be here!” “We can search too!” 

“Hey, hey, hey!” “Oh, no way.” “You’re staying at Grace’s! That’s that!” Their fathers shot back. It would have been funny had the situation not soured it. 

“I can take them home,” Kono said. 

Sam walked forward and hugged Kono, “I’ll help search too.” 

“Sam,” Lou started. 

“No,” Sam was adamant. “Kono was my first friend on this island, and I’m going to help her find her cousin!” 

Lou stared down at his daughter, and Kono was thankful for her friend. Not many people on this island knew the constant worry it was to have family in a job that put them in danger as much as they were, let alone her own age.

After dropping off the kids at Steve and Danny’s, they met another friend in the park who had already joined the search party.

“Jenna!” Kono greeted her with a hug. “You didn’t have to come.”

“What?” she asked. “Of course I did.”

Kono, Jenna, and Sam ran together and were a pretty tight group. Jenna was a left over from her short stint as a junior surfer.

“Hi Adam,” she greeted shortly with a curt nod.

Chin wasn’t the only one that had reservations about Adam.

As they signed in and were given instructions, Kono leaned over to Sam. “Thanks for coming too.”

“What’s it you and Grace always say? ‘Five-0 kids stick together?’” she said with a grin. Then she reached out and squeezed Kono’s hand twice, a signal of solidarity.

Kono took a deep breath as thunder rolled. Tonight was going to be a long night.

~~~

Danny  
~  
It didn’t help that Steve was suffering from a migraine. Danny had enough on his plate with keeping Chin calm and organizing a search party. A search party for one of their own. It was looking more and more like a crime of opportunity. Steve had been suffering from it all day, and even took a half day to go home to sleep it off. Danny was shocked at Steve actually taking off work to take care of an illness. It was only when he found out that it was Sara that was missing that he got up out of bed.

Steve got a phone call just after he sent the kids home with Kono and stepped into his office to take it. It was Kamekona, with something about a kid, and Danny didn’t pay much attention to it. He was so worried about Sara that he told Kamekona to call the regular police to take care of it, and that they had missing Sara on their hands. He parked his truck on the other side of the park. Told him to look out for her. 

“You know I will.”

“Good luck with the kid.”

“Yeah man. See you later. Call me if you need anything.”

He hung up quickly at some flurry in the bullpen. Jumping out of his office he rushed to the table. “What’s going on?”

“Jerry just found out that Sara’s uncle in Columbia has cartel connections.”

“It’s a long shot,” Jerry said. “An accounting firm. A guy knows a guy kind of thing.”

“Like a guy that knows a guy that will kidnap for a price?” Chin asked.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s call this uncle first, see what they know.” Meka said, crossing his arms.

“Yeah,” Abby said, running a calming hand down Chin’s arm. “Ninety nine out of a hundred times, child abduction is by a family member. They wouldn’t hurt her if they just want her.” 

“I fought them!” he practically yelled, running panicked hands through his hair. “I want her back. I have custody, what are they thinking?” 

“Chin,” Steve said, laying a hand on Chin’s shoulder. Chin’s shoulders relaxed immediately. Everyone noticed the change. He went from wired and anxious to chilled out and practically slouching with a single touch. “If that’s the case, we’re all on a plane with you and you know it.”

Chin was calm when he said it. “But what if it’s someone using her to get to them? Or get to us?”

“You still got us. We’re going to find her.”

It was then that Steve grimaced and grabbed his head. Danny was at his side in an instant. 

“Don’t worry,” Steve told him. 

“Too late,” Danny replied. 

“I’m fine,” he lied as he grimaced again and almost doubled over. 

“Look, if the worst happens and we have to ‘go to guns’ then we need you at top shape. Go lay down.”

“Danny…”

“No but’s! Boyfriend speaking!” He turned him around towards his office. “We’ll wake you with anything. Until then, rest!”

Steve sighed in frustration, but went willingly. 

~

An hour later they got a call from Duke. Kamekona had been shot. He had hit his head on his fall backwards from the blow of the gunshot. In a coma, but alive. 

Steve got up for that, intent on going and checking it out and saying he felt a little better, but Danny knew his boyfriend better than that. He knew he was still in pain.

~

Kamekona’s truck was a mess of a scene, and a flurry of CSI. A storm was brewing in the distance, and blood spatter and evidence would be washed away. No witnesses seemed unlikely, but combination Sunday night and rain imminent meant no one was out and all had gone home. Even the tourists. 

Money was missing from the register and the inside of the truck looked like it had been trashed. All the makings of a robbery gone horribly wrong. 

Danny hated leaving Chin, but he had seemed to calm down after Steve’s words. Who knew he trusted Steve that much? With just a few words he was calmer. 

Steve grabbed his head again. Then he sighed. “Stop worrying.” He knew Danny so well. Danny would smile if it weren’t so frustrating. 

“When was the last time you took medicine?” 

“When you made me go lay down.”

“You’ve had this migraine all day. You need to go home where it’s dark.”

“Not while Sara is out there. Not after what happened to Kamekona. We’re all hands on deck right now.”

Danny frowned. 

“Don’t look at me like that, you know I’m right.” He leaned in close, grabbing Danny’s hand. “I’m fine, baby.” 

Danny didn’t believe him.

~~~

Grace  
~  
“We shouldn’t be out here!” Will yelled through the rain. “We shouldn’t be out here! Our dads were clear! We were to stay at your house!” 

“I don’t care!” Grace called back over her shoulder. “Sara needs us!”

“I doubt she’s lost in the woods!” Billy said, jogging to catch up with her. “Someone probably took her.”

“I don’t want to get lost in the woods looking for someone that got kidnapped.” Will complained, “Besides, it’s raining and I hate being in wet clothes.”

Grace turned around and stared at them. “And what if she didn’t get kidnapped? What if she is lost? We were the last people to see her! She’s our friend! We’ve got a responsibility!” 

“Sure, whatever,” Billy said as they made there way past the park marker and into the woods. “What if we get caught?”

“We’re looking for our friend, who’s going to get onto us?”

“Our dads!” Will and Billy said at the same time. Then they grinned at each other. The two of them were doing that ‘talking at the same time’ thing lately.

Grace rolled her eyes. “You two are a couple of big babies!” 

“I’m not a big baby!” Will said, following her.

Soon the rain got harder, and they got deeper into the woods. They dodged the search party once, and took a turn. Both the boys were worried they’d get lost and soon their dads would have to send a search party out for them, but Grace pushed them forward. They had to try.

They didn’t find Sara, but they did find a boy, shaved head, about their age, wearing an oversized Kamekona t-shirt.


	3. Chapter Two

Grace  
~  
The adults had absconded to Columbia, desperate for anything that lead them to Sara. The boy from the woods was timid and insistent that he stay a secret. He hadn’t even told Grace his name, he was so scared. She allowed him that much. Will and Billy were less than impressed, wanting to tell their dads about the strange kid, but Grace had an intense desire to protect him. “We’ll worry about this once they are back from South America,” she declared, and like with most things, the boys followed her order.

He was so scared and amazed by the bean bag chairs set up in the garage loft. Something deep inside Grace worried that he had been somewhere awful. People that wouldn’t let him have the soft clothes that Will had brought over for him. He was better off where he was now, that was for sure.

But the adults were gone, which left Grace’s home empty. She was staying with the Grover’s until her dad and Steve were back. That garage loft became that boy’s safety net.

Grace decided she could be late for school with her parents out of town, and rode her bike straight up the driveway and skidded into the garage. 

“Hey kid!” she called up. “It’s just me!” 

He peeked over the edge with a small smile. 

“I brought some essentials,” she grinned. She started making her way up the ladder. “My dad will be gone for a day or two, so you’re safe for now, until we figure out what to tell him.” 

“No,” he insisted. “Danger.” 

Grace stopped at the top of the stairs with a sigh, staring him down. “So you said. But my dad’s a cop! And my… kinda… step-dad is too! They’ll know what to do.” 

He shook his head, stepping back into the loft.

“Danger,” he said again.

She eyed the oversized Kamekona shirt. “You know what happened to Kamekona.”

The boy nodded timidly. “Bad people. Danger.” 

“My dad can help!” 

“No,” he said loudly and shook his head.

“It’s okay,” she soothed. “We’ve got some time for you to warm up to the idea.”

He didn’t look too believing. 

She shook herself of the weight of what was happening. “I brought you some things.” She flung her backpack down onto the table they were playing DnD on before. “Some food!” She held up a box of poptarts she had stolen from the Grover’s. “Some entertainment!” She pulled out a tablet. He looked at it for a moment. “Do you know how to use this?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“Okay.” She moved to sit down and invited him to join her. They sat there for a minute or two, going over the tablet controls. He seemed to understand the basics, but was amazed by YouTube of all things. Grace felt for him, he really did come from something awful if he didn’t know YouTube.

He sat back into the bean bag chair with wonder. 

“Do you have a name?”

He eyed her for a moment, then turned back to the tablet.

“I need something to call you.” 

“Eleven,” he answered.

“‘Eleven?’” Grace parrotted. 

He nodded. 

“That’s a weird name.”

He shrugged. He really wasn’t a kid of many words.

“Can we call you ‘Evan?’ That’s just short for Eleven.”

He looked up, but not at her. He looked like he was mulling it over. “‘Evan…’” he repeated. Then he nodded.

“Cool, Evan, okay.” 

“You’re Grace.”

Grace nodded. “Yup, you remembered! I didn’t know if you would from how crazy things were last night.”

“Will. Billy.” 

“Yeah, the boys I was with.”

“Where are they?”

“Probably at school. Where I should be.” Then she pulled out one last item. “This is an extra battery, you plug it in like this,” she showed him how, “when the power is low on the tablet. Understand?” 

He nodded. 

“I’ll be back after cheer this afternoon, and I’ll show you the house, okay?”

He nodded again.

“You’re safe here, as long as you stay here, okay?”

He shrugged, looking up at her with only his eyes. She sure hoped he believed her, and she sure hoped she was right.

~~~

 

 

Steve  
~  
The plane ride was a favor from one of Steve’s contacts. It wasn’t a commercial flight, instead they were in the cargo hold of some military transport heading to Columbia. The noise was not helping Steve’s migraine, but somehow he had actually fallen asleep. Something between the familiar pre-mission lull the group had fallen into, like it used to be when he was in service, and Danny’s fingers gently massaging his scalp did the trick. He was out.

But it was not a restful sleep.

Instead, he dreamed of a endless, deep, black room. He’d had this dream before, back when he was a kid new to his adopted home. He’d wake up screaming and his father would soothe him. For some reason though, he couldn’t wake himself up like he used to be able to. He looked down to his arms, and they were his arms from when he was a kid. The numbered tattoo on his forearm was fresh and vivid, nothing like the shadow that was left of it after years of tattoo removal and fading. He knew his childhood was nasty, whoever had him before his mother had brought him home, insistent they make a home for him.

This black space was a chilling reminder of everything his mind had blocked off. Like the door to all those memories from before he was adopted had cracked open. Maybe that’s what his headache was. Memories waking up and ready for him to remember.

He heard footsteps in the inch or so of water beneath his naked feet. He turned. He caught glimpse of his arms; he was grown again. The splash of footsteps sounded behind him again. He turned only to find himself face to face with a little girl, covered in dirt and grime, looking scared out of her wits.

“Sara,” he gasped.

“Uncle Steve,” she groaned, pushing hair out of her face. 

“Where are you?” 

“I was home, but I had to run.”

“Run from what?”

Her head turned quickly, and if she wasn’t scared before, she was now. Steve could see tear tracks down her dirty cheeks. “The monster,” she whispered. 

“Monster?” 

She held a finger up to her lips and stared off somewhere to her right. Steve watched, helpless, as she started breathing erratically. Steve looked into the black and saw nothing. Whatever Sara was seeing was real to her. He felt useless, and started walking towards her.

She held up quick hands, halting him in his place.

“Sara,” he started. “If you’ve got to run, you run.” 

She looked up at him, nodded once, and then she was off into the black, echos from the splashes of water following her. 

Steve stood in the black, hating he couldn’t help her more, as the echoes dissipated into nothing. He started walking. Maybe he could find this monster and kill it before it could hurt Sara. He walked in the black for what felt like a mile before he spotted his father’s Marquis in the distance, only there was a boy behind the wheel. At first Steve thought it was himself, only younger, but the closer he got the more he saw that this couldn’t be true. The boy had darker skin, Asian, even though he sported the same buzz cut Steve did when he was younger.

“Hello?” he called out.

The child looked up from his peaceful rest quickly. He stared at Steve, and quickly got out of the car. The car faded into the black behind him. He was around thirteen and clean - a stark difference from Sara’s dirty face and clothes. He was wearing oversized clothes; Steve recognized them as an old swimsuit of his and an old Navy tank. They measured each other up for a moment, the boy looking confused and curious. 

“Who are you?” Steve asked.

The boy shushed him, much like the way Sara did. Steve didn’t know what to do, so just held his hands out, giving the boy the lead. He pointed into the distance. There was another person with them. An adult, like Steve, and standing still, eyes on Nahele. Then he started slowly walking towards them. Steve watched through the corner of his mind as the boy took several noisy steps back. 

The man was Asian, a few years older than Steve, and fierce. He moved on them like he was a predator to their prey. His pace was easy and confident and heading straight for the boy.

“Boy,” he greeted with a wicked grin. “Where are you, hmm?” 

Steve heard the boy’s breath quicken, and something instinctual made him put himself in front of the boy. The man stepped back with wide eyes, like he hadn’t seen Steve standing there only the moment before. 

He stared at Steve with the same shocked expression for a long time before falling into another wicked grin. 

“Well, welcome home brother.” 

“‘Brother?’” Steve asked.

“He still doesn’t remember,” the man said, tone full of pity.

Then they all heard a howl, heads snapping towards the sound. Steve turned to look at the boy but he was gone. 

“Some other time, then,” the man said. Steve blinked and he was gone.

Another howl, this time closer. Maybe this was the monster Sara was so scared of. He heard heavy running in front of him and slowly, out of the dark, came running a monster, eight foot tall, barreling towards him with no face. Steve’s heart beat so hard and so heavy with nowhere to run or hide, that he sat up with a shock, gasping for breath.

He was on a plane, Danny’s hands on his back.

“Hey, hey,” Danny soothed. “You’re okay.” 

Steve nodded. A nightmare. A dream that meant nothing. He laid back down, head in Danny’s lap. 

“Wanna talk about it?” Danny asked.

Steve shook his head. Then he reached for Danny’s hand again. “Keep that thing with your fingers up. Felt good.” He closed his eyes and feigned sleepiness. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep after that nightmare, but Danny’s fingers gently massaging his head sure helped to calm him.

~~~

 

Evan  
~  
The battery on Grace’s tablet was out by noon, and half the box of poptarts were gone before that. Evan grew restless and decided to explore the garage. He was so used to white walls and minimal, cold, metal furniture that the garage was a strange new world. He ran his hands over the edge of the Marquis, cold and metal, but somehow inviting. He knew what cars were, but he hadn’t seen one like this. The hood had been propped open, and he inspected the engine with a detached wonder. Then he found himself admiring the soft, worn leather seats through the open window.

Opening the door, he moved to sit behind the wheel, and smiled at how warm and welcoming it felt. 

That’s when he spotted the radio. It was a CB, just like the ones he’d worked with before. Curiosity got the better of him, and he turned it on and changed the channel until he found some comforting static and found himself sinking back into the black.

He woke up when the monster had started running for them. The once empty and barren black was now populated by all sorts of people. There was Six, like he always was in his vest suit, standing ever vigil over Evan. (And how he liked his new name. It still wasn’t quite right, but it was so much better than Eleven, that was for sure.) Six had been a constant in Evan’s whole life. Like Mother. Mother would be soft sometimes when Evan was being good, but even Six called her Mother. 

He supposed that made him and Six brothers. 

There was the monster, of course. The thing that Evan set loose. It wasn’t his fault, he didn’t know what would happen when he pushed on the bubble, but he did as he was told and boom. The monster was loose. He had run away in the commotion, scared of Mother’s wrath for letting the thing out of… wherever it came from.

Then there was the little girl. His age, scared and dirty, like she had been running through mud. She had said her name was Sara and she didn’t know where she was and to please, please help her. Evan wanted to, desperately, but didn’t know how without drawing the attention of Six and the monster and Mother and all of Mother’s men. 

Then there was the other man. Tall and strong, who regarded Evan with curiosity and concern. The man that stood between him and Six. The man who wasn’t scared of Six. Then the monster came and Evan couldn’t be there anymore, but in a strange way, Evan was thankful for this new man. Maybe this new man could help.

He was pulled out of his haze when the garage door opened quickly. It was Grace, followed quickly by Will and Billy. Evan had never seen so many people his age before. They were arguing about something.

“...I’m telling you, my dad stayed behind, we should take him to him!” Will said.

Evan got up out of the car quickly. 

“Oh, hey,” Grace said, halfway to the ladder to head up to the landing. “I guess you found the Marquis.”

Evan nodded.

“He knows what happened to Kamekona,” Billy started. Evan’s stomach jumped at the name. The kind man who fed him and clothed him was hurt because of him. Shot, point blank. And it was Evan’s fault. “He’s in a coma!” Relief floated through him. At least he was alive. At least Evan didn’t get him killed.

“He’ll tell us what he knows when he’s ready!” Grace insisted back. 

Glad to know Grace was on his side.

The boys both sighed with frustration. 

“Yesterday you were gung-ho on finding Sara,” Evan perked up at the name on Will’s lips, “and now you want to protect a kid that my dad could protect just as well! Probably better!” 

“Yeah,” Billy shot back. “We don’t have time to worry about some stranger, we’ve got to worry about Sara!” 

“Sara?” Evan asked.

Will and Billy turned to him. 

“Yeah,” Will said, full of anger. “Our friend. Sara. A girl, long black hair.” He slammed the pile of paper he was holding in his hands onto the trunk of the Marquis. “We’ve been hanging up these missing posters all afternoon!” 

Evan reached forward for one of the posters. A black and white picture of the girl he saw in the black was staring up back at him, with a wide, happy smile. “Sara,” he said in wonder.

“Yeah, Sara,” Will said, writing him off. He turned back to Grace. “Let’s take him to my dad. He’ll know what to do.”

“No,” Evan said.

“He’s a cop!” Will argued back. “All our dads are!”

“No!” Evan said again, all but stamping his foot. “Danger.” 

“You said that, but if you’re in danger, they can help!” Billy tried.

“No.”

“Well I’m going,” Will said. “You with me, Billy?” 

“Yeah,” Billy said, moving towards the door.

“Wait, Will,” Grace started. “Guys, wait. He’s just scared…”

“No!” Evan said again.

“Too bad!” Will shouted back, opening the door. Then it pulled out of his hand and slammed shut. The three of them all stood in confusion at the door. Will tried again, only to, yet again, have it slam shut.

“No,” Evan said, voice lower and more certain. The three of them all turned to stare at him in wonder as he wiped the blood from his nose. “We’re staying.”

“How did you do that?” 

“Sara!” Evan tried, trying to get them to move on.

“What?” 

“Sara!” 

“He moved the door with his mind!” Billy yelped. 

“No way…” Grace said, in wonder.

“Sara!” Evan said, picking up the poster and pointing at her. 

“What about her? She’s missing!”

“Maybe he saw her that night?” Grace started. “Did you see her? Do you know where she is?”

Evan nodded.

“Where is she?” “When did you see her?” “How long ago was it?” They all asked him at once.

He backed away, holding his hands up. Then he got into the car and turned the CB radio back to static again, ignoring the complaints of his new friends. He concentrated, his new friend’s eyes on him, frustrated, waiting.

He closed his eyes and was back in the black. He tried to go directly to Sara, her photo helped this time. She was hiding under a porch, scared. 

“Sara,” he called out to her.

“Who are you?” she asked. He could hear his new friends all jump at the sound of her voice, all exclaiming they could hear her, but he tried to block them out, for Sara’s sake.

“A friend.” 

“We have to be quiet. He’ll hear us.”

Evan nodded. He didn’t know if she meant the monster, or Six, but either way he didn’t want to alert anything.

“Can you help me?” she asked.

“Trying,” he replied.

“My Uncle isn’t home,” she said, frightened. 

“Stay safe,” Evan said. “Back later.” 

Sara whimpered. “Don’t leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stay!” 

“Can’t.”

And like that Evan pulled himself out of the black.

“Okay,” Billy said, standing up straight. “What the hell just happened?” 

~~~

 

 

Kono  
~  
Kono didn’t know what she was doing, and from the sounds of Jenna’s protests, she wasn’t the only one. Mrs. Grover had her kids on lockdown, but Chin and Abby were off in Columbia chasing a lead on Sara. She was supposed to be spending the night at Jenna’s, but there was a party, and Adam’s family wasn’t home either, and they had a pool…

“Come on,” Adam had said with a dazzling grin. “Come over, hang out, get your mind off your cousin. You can’t do much anyway.”

It was sad that that grin could make her throw caution to the wind. There was still a chance that it wasn’t Sara’s family in Columbia, and instead something a little closer to home and closer to Five-0. Any of the kids could still be targets.

But without any kind of ransom…

Adam was right. She needed to let off some steam.

That’s how she found herself poolside with Adam and bunch of his friends. She had dragged Jenna along, much against her friend’s will, and it was nice at first.

Some harmless beers, a hit or two from Adam’s brother’s pipe, a surprise swim. Kono was having a good time forgetting her family troubles. Her cousin missing, her mother sick, her guardian off doing something dangerous in a dangerous country. She had a lot to get off her chest. She just wanted to be a normal seventeen year old, was that so much to ask? She just wanted peace. 

Adam’s grin and another beer was helping in her endeavor.

Jenna, however, was having a miserable night. So when Adam moved the party inside and started pulling Kono up the stairs, she and Jenna butted heads a little.

“Come on,” Adam said, disappearing up the stairs. “Let’s get you into some dry clothes.”

“I’m coming,” Kono said, pulling the beach towel close around herself.

“Kono, wait!” Jenna caught her at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you sure you want to do that?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Let’s just go home.”

Kono fought the urge to roll her eyes and sighed. “Just go home if you aren’t having fun, Jenna.” 

“It’s not that,” She said. “This… this isn’t you.” 

Something hurt inside Kono, and her response was to fight back. “How do you know?” 

“I know you. I’ve known you a long time.”

Kono lost the urge to roll her eyes this time. “Things change. People change.” 

“Not this much,” Jenna rubbed her eyes. “You used to be so dedicated to surfing and being an athlete. I’m worried for you.” 

“I’m fine, Jenna.” 

“Sure,” Jenna said. “You keep telling yourself that.” 

Jenna turned and left with a huff, leaving Kono in her wake. She stood at the bottom of the stairs taking that in. So much had changed in such a short amount of time that Kono just wanted things to slow down, for things to resemble normal, even for a little bit.

“Are you coming?” Adam asked, reappearing from the top of the stairs.

He was such a delicious looking slice of normal that Kono couldn’t resist.

~~~

 

Jenna  
~  
Jenna sat alone next to the pool on the diving board. The cool night air floated through her short hair and she all at once wished she was night surfing. It would be a good night for it. She heard a growl to her left and suddenly-

-suddenly she was at the bottom of a now empty pool. The cool breeze from before was gone, and replaced with a stale stagnant air with some kind of ash falling down slowly. There were vines all around her and there was another growl.

Her heart beat quickly and she stood up, looking around for the growl. She found no source.

“Kono?” She called out, scared.

Nothing.

She began to panic. Clamoring against the walls of the pool, she went straight for the ladder. The growls grew. She screamed out for Kono again, to no avail. Some kind of sick, wet sound came from behind her and she finally got her foot in the first step of the ladder. 

“Kono!” She cried.

Something grabbed onto her foot.

“Kono!” She screamed, scared to death.

And then she was pulled down into the pool. The last thing she saw before her head hit the ground with a crack was a man with no face, growling over her.


	4. Chapter Three

Chin  
~  
It felt like wasted time. Two days spent in Columbia chasing down half leads that ultimately went nowhere. Chin’s instinct that Sara’s uncle was no good was spot on, but he didn’t take Sara, nor did anyone trying to get to him take Sara. Chin was a mess, and with every time Steve touched Chin’s shoulder in support, he’d calm down, or have a clear head. The calm wouldn’t last long, but Chin was thankful for his friend’s support.

Abby had gone back into the office, but it was made clear to Chin that he was to go home and get some rest. Check on Kono. Check for any sign of Sara. 

He had called his cousin, found out she was worried for her friend Jenna, but otherwise fine, considering. The house looked untouched, and the note he had left on the front door for Sara to go to the Grover’s hadn’t moved.

Was there anything in his life that wasn’t going to turn out like crap?

He made his way into the house and back into Sara’s bedroom. He flipped on the lights and sat down on the bed with a sigh. The fairy lights Sara and Kono had set up in a net over Sara’s bed to help Sara’s phobia of the dark flickered lightly, but Chin didn’t pay attention.

“I’m so sorry, Sara,” Chin was barely holding back tears. “I’m so sorry.” 

The lights flickered again. He reached out and shook the wire and they stayed on.

“I was supposed to take care of you, and I didn’t…” The lamp next to her bed came on. Chin assumed he shook the lamp’s wire when he shook the fairy light wire causing it to come on. He reached out and turned the lamp off.

The fairy lights flickered again.

This probably wasn’t safe. Some faulty wiring in a young girl’s room was a dangerous. He moved to work on it-

“Oh, Sara, I failed you.” He sat back, slumped over.

The lamp, turned off, glowed brightly and stayed lit. 

Chin stared at it, a bit dumbfound. He felt stupid asking his next question, “Sara?” 

The fairy lights flickered and the lamp dimmed and brightened again.

“Sara is that you?” 

It happened again.

Chin had to be going crazy.

“Okay, do that once for yes, two for no, okay? Can you do that?” 

It happened once, and stalled.

“Is this Sara Diaz?” 

The lights glowed. The computer on her desk came on and sparked, shutting off quickly again. The fairy lights flickered quickly. A flurry of action in her room. Everything electronic came to life and buzzed and glowed brightly. Then all at once it was over.

“Sara?” He called out, feeling stupid. There was obviously something going on with the power. “Sara?” He called out, anyway.

Everything stilled. Chin almost started berating himself for believing something so childish when Sara’s wall started to… shift and grow in some grotesk scene out of a horror film. Something was reaching out through the wall, held back by only the wallpaper. Chin jumped, reached for his gun - remembering he had dropped it off on his way to Sara’s room - vacated the room quickly. Then out of the house and straight to his car. The gray of the early morning meant the street lights should still be on, instead they were off, and every light on the outside of Chin’s house was blaringly bright. 

He stood, watching it, watching all the lights in his house flicker.

If that really was Sara, somehow, someway, he couldn’t leave her alone. He couldn’t let her down, not again.

He found his nerve, and marched right back inside.

~~~

 

Danny  
~  
Steve’s headache was worrying Danny. They were going on day three of the migraine, and if they didn’t do something about it, Steve would be down for the count for real. He walked around like his head was heavy, and he was waking up from nightmares every time he slept. He shook them off like they were nothing, but he was still sitting up straight with a scared look on his face.

There was a moment, when they stormed the local police station in Columbia looking for records in ski masks and heavy weaponry, when Steve stood up on a desk and told everyone to calm down, and - unexpectedly - they all put their weapons down. Steve stumbled off that desk clinging to his head, this time with a bloody nose.

Danny was a worrier. He couldn’t help it.

They came home with no luck, no sign of Sara, no leads on Kamekona, and Danny was pushing Steve into a doctor’s office. He was having an MRI done. Right off the plane and into the machine, no butts, no discussion, no arguing. Danny already set up the appointment.

Surprisingly, Steve went. Whatever was happening, it was worrying Steve too, to go this easy. That only made Danny worry more.

Just before Steve had been called back into the little room, Danny got a call from Lou. Something small on Sara, but finally, something. Anything. Danny would take it, for Chin’s sake.

“We should go,” Steve said, standing up. 

It took a considerable amount of force to sit Steve back down. “No, you’re going to go get your head scanned and you’re going to listen to the doctor and you’re going to go home, take meds, and sleep. I will call you if this turns out to be something, okay?” 

“I need to-”

“You need to get better. And soon. This is worrying me.”

“Don’t be worried,” Steve said, reaching up to Danny’s hands on his shoulders. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stay. I’ll be good.”

And as soon as he said it a wash of confidence fell over Danny like the tide sliding up his ankles. He didn’t know where it came from, but he was sure glad it was there. 

“Okay,” Danny said, leaning down and kissing the top of his head. “I’ll call you.” 

Somewhere on the ride between the doctor’s office and meeting Lou at the edge of the woods, the confidence dropped suddenly like a switch and the worry was back. Danny tried to shake the mood swing off, but it was on his mind the rest of the drive. How did he get his mind off his worry like that… did Steve do something? That was ridiculous. It was just them, finding their footing in their relationship, that’s all.

~

“A tunnel?” Danny asked. The ranger had been following trails for days, but the rain storm a few days ago washed most of it out.

“I found this,” he held up a piece of blue cloth. “Snagged on a vine, about ten yards from here.” He motioned into the woods. “This--” he pointed at the tunnel, “this is an emergency walking route if ever the road into Diamond Head crater ever collapses for any reason.”

“How many people know about it?”

The Ranger shrugged. “Other than the Rangers? Just the people that work inside the crater? A handful of people I suppose.” 

“And what kind of work happens in the crater?” Lou asked. 

The ranger shrugged again. “Seismology. A bunch of science labs. Military hush hush types.”

“I didn’t know that,” Lou said with a hum. “I thought it was a tourist thing.” 

“It is,” the ranger said. “But there’s some underground labs too.” 

“Great,” Danny said with a groan. Just what he needed. Military secrets. Won’t Steve be upset Danny didn’t call him for that. “Why haven’t you gone through it?” 

“The gate is locked.”

“So she couldn’t have gotten though.” 

“That’s just it…” the Ranger trailed off. “The lock looks brand new. Like they put it up in the last few days.” 

“Why would they lock a little girl inside the crater?” 

Lou shrugged. “Maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see?” 

“She’s a little girl,” Danny said again. Lou shrugged again, worry on his face. Danny’s stomach dropped at the thought of what they were doing if they took a child as a threat. “Well, let’s get Meka and go make a visit. See what we can see.” 

~

The visit was a load of crap. A quick tour of the ground level of a couple labs. One lab monitored earthquakes, another volcanoes, another the tidal wave buoys that encircle the islands. All things you’d expect and everything on the up and up. Everyone seemed concerned and wanted to help. Then Danny asked to go into another building, deep into the compound, and suddenly they had to have permission and clearance and Danny even had to make a call to the Governor who apparently didn’t have enough pull to get them in. 

“We’ve got to find out what happens at that lab,” Meka said as they got in Lou’s car heading out of the crater. 

“Crater Lab, the sign said,” Lou pointed out. “It’s time to call Jerry.” 

“Yup,” Danny said. 

Jerry was loads of help. Apparently there had been all sorts of conspiracies about the place for as long as it had been there. Built sometime after Pearl Harbor; the lab was secretive. The scientists that worked in the other labs had to have special clearance to even work in the crater. 

“They all know something, even if they don’t know they know it.” 

“Jerry,” Danny warned. “English.” 

“Right.” He sighed, and pushed back from the computer. “Crater Lab is like, top five Hawaii conspiracies, man, right up there with Elvis and the oil out of the Arizona.”

“The… what? Nevermind. Tell us about the lab, Jerry,” Lou said, crossing his arms.

“No one quite knows what it’s for. Prevailing theories are various forms of weapons development. Weapons that controls the weather, causes earthquakes, that kind of thing.”

Meka puffed out his cheeks with a big sigh. “What is your prevailing theory?”

Jerry paused for a moment, taking them all in. “Human experiments.” 

Danny nodded, unbelieving. “Right. Like cloning and unsanctioned vaccine testing?” 

“Sure, totally, there’s a lot of regular medical testing documented,” Jerry said, waving an arm around. “But what I’m talking about is… worse.”

“How did you come to this conclusion?” Lou asked.

“These,” He pressed a few buttons and a bunch of files popped up. “These are witness and victim statements that have made it out into the open. People that claim they were experimented on during Japanese Internment, people that lost people in the transition out of internment. A whole bunch of other things. Each of these victims is either dead or incapacitated.”

“Great, a sixty year old experiment that no longer exists, Jerry, we need this century.” 

“And I have that,” He said with a grin. “Meet Mia Huikala,” He threw a picture up on the board. “In 2002 she claimed she was part of an experiment in the lab. Now volunteer experiments are well documented. Drug trials, DNA testing, the like. But she claims Crater Lab stole her baby.” 

“‘Stole her baby?’” Meka asked. “Like, kidnapped? Is there record of that?” 

“The only record is the newspaper article that ran her story,” He pulled up another picture, a screenshot of the newspaper. “She said she was held against her will while she was pregnant, and was told the baby was stillborn. She swears she saw him, and he was a healthy, crying baby boy.” 

“What was the experiment she signed up for about?” Danny asked.

“What does that matter?”

“It matters a lot.” 

Jerry was hesitant in his answer. “The hallucinatory effects of PTSD.” 

“Right,” Danny said. Lou and Meka’s shoulders fell too. She could have imagined the whole thing, and tried to get some money out of her experience. It was too easy, come on Jerry.

“But the thing is, after the article, there were four mothers that all spoke up and said the same thing happened to them!” 

“What?” Danny asked.

“Do you believe me?” 

“Enough to listen.”

Jerry bit his lip. “There were two mothers from the seventies, of all things. Said they were doing LSD testing, found out they were pregnant, wanted to back out of the program, but were both held against their will. Five years apart. There’s another mother from the nineties that said the same thing. Crater Lab isn’t just doing experiments on humans, they’re doing them on babies.” 

“Where are these mothers now?” 

“Two are dead,” Jerry said. “In mysterious circumstances.”

“Of course.” 

“The mother from the nineties is unaccounted for,” Jerry said.

“Of course,” Meka rolled his eyes.

“But the mother from 2002 is alive, here in Honolulu. We should go talk to her.”

“Come on, Jerry,” Lou said. “This is a long shot.”

“If they are doing experiments on babies, a kid like Sara might be what they are looking for! And she just landed in their laps!” 

“Jerry-”

“I’m just putting it out there. She could be in more danger than we expected.”

“I’m not saying this is the answer but… where’s this Mia Huikala?”

Jerry said nothing.

“Jerry?” Danny pushed.

“A long term care facility for the mentally ill.” 

“Oh my god,” Danny said as Meka blew a sigh out of his mouth and Lou rolled his eyes.

“What?”

~~~

 

Kono  
~  
“I’m telling you, Sam, Jenna wouldn’t just run away! Her parents are worried sick!” She threw her car into park, just at the edge of Adam’s neighborhood and the woods. ...the same woods that Sara went missing in. Something about it just didn’t sit right in her stomach.

“Jason moved to the mainland three months ago. You and I both know she’s been missing him.”

“And I called Jason,” Kono said. “After your dad found her car at the airport. He says he hasn’t heard from her in week!”

“So he’s covering for her.”

“Ugh,” Kono said, pushing out of the car.

“Kono, wait!”

“Something happened. Something bad.”

“You’re just on alert because of Sara.”

“Sam,” Kono said, angry. “That’s low.”

“Sorry. But you said it yourself, you and Adam went off on your own, and she was alone. She was missing Jason and left!”

“It’s more than that,” Kono said, heading towards the hiking path behind Adam’s neighborhood. “I feel it in my gut.”

“What are you, a cop? ‘Feel it in your gut,’” She repeated with a huff. “If you’re right, and it is some rabid boar, why are we going looking for it? We’ll just be its next victims!” 

“You don’t have to come,” Kono said over her shoulder.

Sam paused in her step. “Of course I do. Jenna’s my friend too.”

“Then come on,” Kono said with a victorious grin.

Into the woods they went, though even though there were wilder parts on the island, the small woods turned to thick jungle the deeper they went in. It would be easy to see how a young girl could get turned around in it. Kono and Sam were careful to mark their path as they walked. They stumbled around for a good half hour before Sam declared it was time for a break.

“Just a few minutes, Kono,” She said, sitting down on a nearby rock. “I think I have something in my shoe.” 

“That’s cool,” Kono said. “I wish I had brought water.”

“How much deeper are we going? Before long we’re going to come out the other side.” 

“To be honest, I was planning on going all the way through.”

“...of course you were,” Sam sighed, rubbing her foot.

Then there was a loud crack somewhere to their left and the whole area went quiet. Sam and Kono shared a nervous glance at each other, and Sam made quick work of putting her shoe back on.

“Slowly,” Kono warned. If it was a boar, the last thing they needed was a chase.

Of course, as soon as Kono had gone through her elementary school list of ‘what to do when you’re around a boar’ lesson, another crack - louder this time - echoed around them.

“We need to get out of here,” Sam said slowly.

“You’re right,” Kono said, reaching for her to help her stand.

Then a third crack sounded behind them - towards the direction of Kono’s car. They stood in horror as an eight feet tall… faceless… was it a man? Or was it some kind of beast? Whatever it was, it was facing another way.

Until Sam let out a small gasp, and suddenly it turned to face them. Slowly, it’s head… opened up? 

Kono didn’t know. She backed up quickly, pulling at Sam’s arm, and together they ran towards the nearer side of the woods. They’d come out near the park near where Kamekona’s truck would usually hold up shop. Right now, Kono was just hoping that they could out run whatever this thing was.

They ran, fast as they could, dodging vines and jumping over fallen palm trees. Kono’s lungs were burning as she breathed heavy, both out of exertion and out of fear. Then Sam tripped, and Kono paused, turning back to help her get back up. She had a bloody shin, but looking back over Sam’s shoulder, she could see the thing, trapped up in the vines of the jungle. Those vines would buy them a few minutes head start, but whatever it was, they needed to get out into the open.

Sam up, another moment to spare watching the monster struggle, the two were back on their way towards the park.

When they finally made it out of the tree line, and onto a concrete path, they still didn’t stop. A few park-goers watched their fear, but none moved to follow them. They didn’t stop until they reached Kamekona’s truck, still marked off with police tape from earlier that week.

Doubling over, hands on their knees, they stopped to catch their breath.

“Surely that thing won’t leave the jungle,” Sam gasped.

Kono stood, hands on her head, trying to open her lungs as much as she could. “I hope so. I hope you don’t mind we take the long way around back to my car.”

“No,” Sam laughed. “Not at all. I’m never going in the woods again.” 

“Do you think that thing found Sara?”

“Do you think that thing found Jenna?” Sam countered. “Do you think it would come that close to people?”

“It chased us, it’s obviously not scared of people.” 

“Great, now who will believe us? That thing didn’t have a face!”

“I know.”

“It’s head opened up like in that one zombie movie!” 

“I know.”

“Is it a zombie?” Sam stopped, asking herself. Then she shook her head. “No way. That’s crazy, right? It’s not a zombie. It is a monster though.”

“Now if it’s a man-eater…”

“Oh god.” Sam looked sick at the thought. 

That’s when Kono saw the flashing lights in the park parking lot a couple hundred yards down the beach. “What’s that?” 

Sam looked over her shoulder. “Maybe someone else saw that thing.”

“Let’s check it out.” 

“Man,” Sam said, another deep gasp, moving to follow Kono. “Being friends with you is terrifying. But sure, let’s go towards the flashing lights. Let’s go deep into the jungle and look for two missing girls while we are, in fact, girls! Let’s go jumping off cliffs into the ocean at night. Let’s go looking for rabid boar and find a baby cloverfield monster.”

“Can’t say life with me is boring.”

“How Adam keeps up with you is a wonder.”

Kono grinned, endorphins from the run catching up with her mixing with the adrenaline in a dangerous way. “Who says he does?”

That’s when they noticed they were bringing someone out on a stretcher. Kono picked her pace up to a jog, and when she noticed the body was smaller than an adults, she sprinted into a run.

“Kono, wait!” Sam called after her. Kono couldn’t wait. 

If it was Sara…

~

“Cuz,” Kono asked, letting herself into the house. They had some bad news to deliver. Abby wasn’t far behind her. What they found was a mess. Chin had painted an alphabet up onto the walls and strung Christmas lights for each letter.

“Chin,” Abby said quickly. “What is this?” 

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.” 

Kono already thought that a little bit, but okay. “No, no way. Just. What’s with the decorating?” 

“...” he hesitated. “...it’s Sara.” 

“What?” Abby and Kono asked at the same time.

“Don’t ask me how, but I’m communicating with her. In the lights,” He pointed up to them. “I know it sounds crazy. But she was just here. She had to run, something was after her, she’s not safe.”

Kono shared a look with Abby.

Abby moved forward, “Honey,” she started, “She’s not.” 

“I know, earlier something came from the other side of the wall in her room… something with no face? It’s hard to describe. 

“No face…” Kono whispered.

“Honey,” Abby tried again, ignoring Kono. “Honey they found a body.”

“What?” Chin asked.

“In the woods. It was a little girl, caught up in the mud of a flash flood. Sara’s bike was found abandoned nearby.”

“No,” Chin shook his head. “No. It can’t be.” He pointed up to the letters on the wall. “...the lights…”

“Cuz,” Kono started, comforting hands already reaching out. “It was an honest accident.”

“No.”

“Chin…” 

“No!”


	5. Chapter Four

Danny  
~  
Chin was refusing to see reason. Abby had called, said that Chin had lost it and she wasn’t exaggerating. His house was torn up, lights strung up everywhere, and he was talking gibberish about monsters in walls and how Sara couldn’t possibly be dead, he was just talking to her.

Kono was very quiet. That was unusual for her, but Danny could tell she wasn’t handling the situation all too well. Her younger cousin was just found dead, and her legal guardian was having a breakdown. Danny didn’t blame her silence. He understood it.

“Chin, buddy, just… we-we gotta have you identify the body.” 

“No.”

“Chin…” Abby started, easy hand on his shoulder.

He brushed her off. “No!”

“Max has taken real good care of her,” Danny said gently. “Said he made her a priority.” 

“It’s not her!”

“Well, let’s go see and make sure, yeah?” Danny asked. “If it’s not her, then someone is missing the little girl they did find.” 

That seemed to do the trick. He pushed himself into a clean shirt, and they barely got him into the car. He didn’t seem to want to leave the house, and when the front porch light flickered as they pulled away, he hit the window with a pained expression that worried Danny more than anything.

Abby tried to calm him from the back seat, but he just pushed her off.

Kono stayed quiet.

Once at the morgue, Danny watched as Chin slipped further into denial. 

“That’s not her!” he exclaimed. He pushed himself out of the examination room, and into the lobby. Kono went after him.

Abby and Danny stayed back, giving him space. 

“I don’t know what to do, Danny,” Abby said sadly. “I know denial is part of grief but…”

“He’s a guy that’s dealt with too much traumatic death, that’s all. It would get to anyone.” Danny lost himself in a moment, thinking of all the people he lost flashing through his memory like a clip show on fast forward. He shook himself out of it - now was not the time for a pity party.

“He thinks she’s in the lights,” Abby said, exhausted. She rubbed at her eyes.

~

Danny had to admit something wasn’t right.

“He’ll be okay, though, right?” Steve asked as they sunk into their mattress for the night. 

“I don’t know,” Danny sighed, crossing his arms. He thought to Grace, laying alone in the room next door, and to Charlie in the room down the hall. “I wouldn’t be.” 

Steve rolled over and rubbed his nose on Danny’s shoulder. Danny grinned against the sadness. He lifted an arm up and around Steve’s head, gently massaging his hair.

“How’s your head?” Danny asked.

“Whatever was in that shot they gave me worked,” Steve said with a chuckle. “We’ll have MRI results in a couple days. Let’s hope it’s just stress. Between Sara and Kamekona, and now Kono’s friend Jenna…”

“And the kid…” Danny said slowly.

“What kid?”

“The one that Kamekona found. We never found him.”

Steve sighed, moving his arm across Danny’s chest to hold him. “Make that three missing kids.” 

“And the tunnel from Diamond Head… and Crater Labs! Like… we have clearance for everything and we… we couldn’t…”

“Shh, Danny,” Steve said, sleepy. “Worry about it after sleep.” 

“Doesn’t this bug you?” 

“Of course it does, but I’m pain-free for the first time in four days and I just want to sleep.”

Danny sighed. He had to give him that much. Something wasn’t quite right, everything was just this side of normal. The woman today - Mia Huikala - her story and her now vegetable like state, the hiker that found Sara’s body and his story sounding so rehearsed, too perfect and too cadenced, Jerry’s conspiracies… complete with a mysterious lab he wasn’t allowed to know anything about. If only Kamekona would wake up and give him another piece to a very frustrating puzzle.

...he wasn’t even convinced he had a puzzle.

Years of cop work told him otherwise, somewhere deep in him, something wasn’t right.

But Steve was softly snoring against his shoulder and this - this - was something he could do. He could lay here, wrapped up in his boyfriend’s arms, and be his pillow.

~~~

 

Evan  
~  
News about Sara’s body had hit them all and his new friends had decided they needed to meet up, but their parents wouldn’t allow it. They were all too nervous to let them out of their sight just yet. Understandable, but contrary to their goal: finding Sara.

“Took you long enough,” Billy said from the landing as Grace moved into the garage.

“I was waiting for them to fall asleep!” She shot back at him. 

“Hey,” Will said, sadly. Then he started to move down the ladder. “He wanted to wait on you.” 

“Wait on me?” She asked. She turned and saw him through the passenger window. He lifted his hand in a small little wave. He had been sitting alone in the Marquis ever since the boys showed up and went upstairs. They weren’t as quite warmed up to him as Grace was and kept their distance. “You don’t know if she’s even…” 

He brought his eyes down to the radio; she was talking about finding Sara.

“I haven’t tried,” He answered softly.

Will made it down the ladder, Billy not far behind him, and moved to sit in the back seat. Grace opened the passenger door and handed over a packet of poptarts. He took it greedily. He wondered what this one would taste like. Billy had brought over chocolate ones the day before and those were most excellent. He opened up the silver package, hungry and ready for a meal, and took a large bite out of one of the tarts. Some kind of red berry with icing. It was delicious and he wondered how many flavors these things came in. Grace grinned at him, and he grinned back. He liked pop tarts.

“Yes, yes, good to see the two of you bonding,” Will said, sliding into the backseat with Billy. “Let’s talk to Sara.” 

Evan looked over his shoulder at Billy. 

“We don’t even know if she’s safe. That could have really been her body.” 

“It wasn’t her,” Will said. 

“We don’t know that,” Billy said, rolling his eyes. “Evan can find out, and he wanted to wait on Grace!”

“Okay, okay, calm down!” Grace told him. “Sorry I couldn’t just sneak out, do you know how many locks are on the upstairs doors?” 

“Whatever,” Will said, sitting back and crossing his arms.

“What’s your problem?” Billy asked. “None of this is Grace’s fault.” 

“Whatever,” Will said again, this time in Billy’s direction. 

Evan sighed loudly and hung his head. Grace noticed and turned to sit right in the seat. “Can you do this?” She asked him.

Evan nodded. Then he reached for the old CB radio. It was already primed with static and he closed his eyes.

Grace, Will, and Billy waited expectantly as Evan floated into the black. Six was there, but he had his back turned and hadn’t seen him yet. It was a stroke of luck. He was saying something and he strained forward to hear:

 

“I don’t see it… No, I’m alone… Mother, please… No, he’s sleeping. With that detective. They are in a bed, he’s not a worry right now... No, I don’t see the boy.” 

Evan opened his eyes with a gasp and pulled out of it. His new friends were on him in an instant.

“What?” “What did you see?” “Was it Sara?” “Who was talking?” “Detective? What detective?” 

He shook his head. “Wrong person.” 

“What? There’s more than one person wherever Sara is?”

Evan nodded. “Kind of.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Will asked, exacerbated. 

“Will!” Billy smacked him on the shoulder. “Stop being rude!” 

“Dude!” Will smacked him back.

Billy smacked him again, and quickly it turned into a flurry of slaps that Grace rolled her eyes and turned quickly in the seat. 

“Boys!” She said, sternly. “Behave!” 

Both boys sat back with a huff. 

“Ignore them, Evan,” She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Grace was easily the nicest person he’d ever met. In close competition with Kamekona, for sure.

“I can try again,” Evan said, hoping they’d all be quiet. “Shh.” 

He closed his eyes again and this time found himself in front of Sara. She was sitting on a bed. She saw him immediately. She looked dirty, eyes sunken in, sickly. She wasn’t going to last much longer with the state she was in.

“You,” She said. “You’re back.” 

He nodded. 

A man appeared on the bed next to her, though he didn’t look like he was there. He said something - something muffled and muted. Sara watched him, then she reached forward and as soon as she touched it, a lamp appeared. It lit up briefly and she pulled her hand back and the lamp faded into the black. The man looked relieved.

She turned back to Evan, “He believes me.” 

“Who?” 

“My Uncle,” She responded. 

“What about the monster?” 

“He comes here, I think the lights attract him. It’s so dark here.” 

Evan knew where she was referring to. He’d only seen glimpses of it. The monster without a face. His new friends had named it The Demogorgon.

“Stay safe,” He told her. 

“I want to come home,” She whimpered.

“We’re trying,” He answered. “Your friends believe you too.” 

She lit up, her sunken eyes looking better, and nodded. “Go. Get me out of here.” 

Evan felt a bit helpless, but nonetheless nodded, giving her some kind of encouragement. 

He opened his eyes and sighed. “She’s alive.”

“And Uncle Chin knows it,” Grace said. “We could use that! We could go to him!” 

“And say what, exactly?” Will asked. “‘Oh, hey, so your niece isn’t dead, and we know that because we’ve got a psychic boy hiding in our garage and we have no idea where he came from?’”

Grace shrugged. “Sounds like a good place to start.” 

“How do we explain the alternate universe theory? The Upside Down? The Demogorgon! How do we even start?” Billy asked. “It took us three days of googling, and I still don’t completely understand it.” 

Evan quietly took another bite of his pop tart.

“Look,” Will said, adjusting in his seat. “I say we skip school tomorrow and try to find this portal, if it even exists.” 

“The compass doesn’t point north! Just like that guy in the forum said would happen.” Billy shot back. “That’s proof enough for me.” 

Evan took another quiet bite of his poptart, suddenly bland in his mouth. They were talking about the portal again. When they found that piece of information a few days ago his stomach sank. If they found the portal, they’d find the lab. If they found the lab, then they’d find the dangerous people. If they found where he came from… none of them would be safe any longer.

He swallowed a dry bite, and bit back the fear. 

~~~  
Kono  
“Your dad is going to be mad you’re out so late,” Kono told Adam as she loaded her car.

“My dad is out of town and doesn’t care what I do,” Adam shrugged. He reached forward into her trunk and pulled out a baseball bat. “Don’t you need to be with your cousin? What’s with the arsenal in the trunk?” 

She pulled the baseball bat out of his hands with a slight huff. A baseball bat, some rope, and an old soccer net hardly made an arsenal. Sam had plans to bring some other things, and she was going to scour Kamekona’s house later for some more things she was sure he had stockpiled. Maybe she could get her hands on a gun…

...whatever was in the woods, maybe it was allergic to bullets.

“Chin’s losing it. He doesn’t believe that they found Sara’s body. I had to identify her!” 

“So why are you loading up a bag full of flashlights and a baseball bat?” 

She bit her lip and stomped her foot a little. She was just as crazy as Chin was. She’d write the whole thing off as a shared delusion if it wasn’t for Jenna’s disappearance and Sam witnessing whatever was in the woods. That thing chased them for a mile in thick terrain. It was strong and a predator and it needed to be neutralized. 

But would Adam believe her?

With a guarded look and a bite of a lip, she took a chance. “Look, this afternoon-” And she went about telling him her story. How she and Sam went looking for Jenna and found a nightmare. He listened as she told him how it attacked them, how it’s face opened up to a horrifying sight of teeth and mouth. His face remained impassive the whole tale, and then she finished.

“So you think a monster killed Sara?” 

“I think she was at least running from it when she ran into the mudslide.” 

“...right.” 

“You don’t believe me.” 

“No! Have you told anyone else?” 

She shook her head. “Just Sam, and she was there.” 

“And your cousin thinks Sara is in the lights…” He said, taking it in.

Kono rolled her eyes and shut her trunk. “I’m worried about him.”

“I’m worried about you both,” He said in return.

“So you don’t believe me.” 

“...Kono-” 

“That’s fine! You don’t have to come!” 

“You’re going back into the woods? At night? Even if there isn’t a monster, two girls have gone missing, that’s a bad idea.” 

“I’m not going tonight. Sam and I are going tomorrow after Sam’s done with school. I’ve… I’ve got funeral arrangements to make tomorrow.” She bit her lip again. “Chin won’t make them.” 

“Kono,” He started. She walked away from him, back towards her house. She stalled. She really didn’t want to walk back into crazy light town right now. “Kono wait.” 

“Adam…” She sighed. “Can we… just not.”

“Not what?”

“Just forget it,” She started walking towards the house again.

“Kono wait,” He said, grabbing her elbow. She turned willingly, but with a roll of the eyes. “I believe you saw something out there. But it was probably an overgrown boar.” She rolled her eyes again. “Whatever it was, you need to tell the authorities!” 

“They won’t believe me. Not now, not after Sara. They’ll write it off as a boar, just like you did. They won’t take it seriously, and someone else is going to get hurt!” 

“Maybe you’re just as stressed out as your cousin is. Losing Sara could’ve-”

She rolled her eyes again, anger rising. “It was a monster, Adam! Eight feet tall, without a face! And it was fast! It knew where we were. It was real, Adam. It was terrifying.”

“So you’re going after it?”

She shrugged. “No one is going to believe us! You certainly don’t.” 

“Kono.”

“Goodnight, Adam.” 

“Kono…”

And with a huff, she left him in her driveway. Anger rose in her, and she didn’t know where it came from. Maybe it was a grief thing from losing Sara. But running from that monster was not an attribute of grief. That monster was real. Screw Adam, screw no one believing her. She walked into her house and slammed the front door behind her.

Chin looked up at the sound. He had an axe in his lap, his shotgun on the coffee table in front of him, and a look of fierce determination on his face.

“How’s Adam?” He asked, like he wasn’t surrounded by a chaos of Christmas lights and a weapon in his grip.

Kono shrugged. “What’s with the axe?” 

Chin’s jaw tightened and he sat up straighter. “You already think I’m crazy.” 

She thought about the anger that rose in her when Adam didn’t believe her, but Chin had said something about a no-face monster earlier. Maybe... “Try me.”

He pointed to the wall in front of him. She turned to look. He had already tore down the wall, insulation hanging out of a gaping hole. “I saw Sara. I can’t explain it. I don’t know where she is, but she’s close. Something was after her like this afternoon. The monster without a face.”

Kono took a deep breath staring openly at the hole in the wall.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I want to be ready for it.” 

“Let me go get my bat,” Kono said with resignation. A small part of her wanted to grow in hope that Chin was right about Sara, but she saw Sara’s body. Sara was gone. But Chin saw the monster too. That much she could believe. That much she could accept. “When I get back, I’ve got a story to tell you.” 

“You believe me?” 

She felt a small tear form on her cheek and she wiped at it as quickly as she could. “Maybe not about Sara. But maybe something was after her.”

The relief that floated over Chin’s face made another tear fall. She turned to go and let herself cry for as long as it would take to retrieve her bat. After that it was all business. She had a monster to kill.


	6. Chapter Five

Grace  
~  
“I can’t believe we’re actually skipping school. Oh my god. Oh my god. My mom is going to kill me. I can’t believe we just… left school. Can you believe this is something kids do all the time? How do they get away with it? How do their moms not kill them? The school is going to call my mom and then there’s gonna be amber alerts out and then I’m going to die because she’s going to kill me.”

“Oh my god, Billy,” Will said, roughly pushing his bike over a lump of sand near the entrance of the park. “Shut up.”

“They’ll call, we’ll say we’re upset about Sara, we’ll say we’re at my house, they’ll be chill, it’ll be okay.” 

“I don’t think so.”

“Whatever, the compass says we need to go into the woods, so let’s lock up our bikes over there,” Grace said, pointing towards a bike rack near the parking lot. 

Evan was quiet. Grace knew that he was worried about the danger of whoever was after him, and being out from the safety of the garage was getting to him. 

“Hey,” Grace said gently. “It’ll all be okay.”

Evan didn’t look comforted. He only shrugged and moved to follow Will. 

The compass was actually from Grace’s Aloha Girl’s stuff. They spent an afternoon a few days ago riding their bikes across town to get into her mom’s house to get it. Evan was nervous then, too, always looking over his shoulder. If their dads hadn’t been out of the country, they’d never gotten to ride their bikes that far alone.

The compasses on their cell phones didn’t work. They were digital, and didn’t adhere to the normal compass laws. Instead they had to have an old fashioned one, complete with a needle. It pointed due west, and they knew they were on to something. 

Grace had a backpack full of water, and they all made sure to bring sack lunches today, so they were all bogged down by heavy bags. It was already a hot day, and the afternoon only threatened to become hotter. Walking around in Oahu jungle would not help. Grace was athletic, but it was still a rough hike, and the boys were both sweating up a storm. How Evan walked through it all in flip flops like it was nothing was a wonder.

They had been walking for a couple hours, the compass jumping all over the place, when Grace’s phone rang, but she had been expecting it.

“Hey Danno,” sShe answered.

“Where are you?”

“I’m safe.”

“Why didn’t you call?” 

“We all just felt awful about Sara, I couldn’t be at school today, Ddaddy. Where are you?” 

“Steve and I had some work to do. Are you at home?”

And here was the tricky part. She had a lie ready, they all did. That they were spending the day sulking in the garage. But if any of their dads had swung by to check…

“I’m in the garage.” 

“Good,” he said. Instantly Grace felt guilty about lying and relief that it worked. “Stay there, okay? Are the boys with you?” 

“Yeah,” she didn’t lie.

“Look, Monkey… I’m sorry about Sara… but-but baby you can’t just- you can’t. You gotta let me know where you are. Too many kids have gone missing lately.” 

“I’m sorry, Danno.” 

“Look, we’ll be home late tonight, okay? So I want you to go home with Billy and stay with the Hanamoma’s, okay? Meka will pick you guys up.”

Like they planned it, Billy’s phone rang. Her father reprimanded her again while she listened to Billy give the same lie to his dad. She pulled her phone away from her face. “Will, why don’t you call your dad, let him know, now that all the dads know.” 

“I was about to say that. Look- none of us… we understand you guys are upset.”

“Yeah…”

“You lost your friend… maybe.”

“‘Maybe?’” Grace repeated.

“It’s nothing, Monkey, just stay safe-”

“What do you mean, ‘maybe?’” Grace demanded. All three boys were giving her a curious look.

“- nothing -just stay safe. Play some dungeons and dragons, watch movies, hang out on the beach, but please, please, please, baby stay away from the woods.” 

Grace took a second to check out her surroundings. They were deep in the thick woods between the park and Diamond Head Crater. “Okay, Danno,” She lied again. She hated it.

Evan sniffed.

“Danno loves you, baby.” 

“I love you too, Danno.” 

She hung up then, with Billy pleading with his dad and Will anxiously holding his phone up to his ear.

“Why are you lying?” Evan asked.

“We don’t want to get in trouble, and someone-” She emphasised by pushing a single finger into his shoulder “-didn’t want us to tell anyone.” 

Evan looked away and sniffed again.

“Hey! It’s okay!” Grace started. 

(Will cut her off. “Dad! Hi! No I’m with Grace and Billy. School just seemed stupid today after... that’s all. I know-”) 

Grace ignored him, “We understand you’re in danger. But anytime you want to tell us why, that would be great.” 

She knew he was scared, and sometimes when you’re scared you just don’t talk about it. Sometimes people just needed time and space to feel safe. She hoped she made him feel safe. He was so jumpy, and he hated small spaces, and cans of coke, and that stray cat that Steve leaves water out for, and a dozen other small things that made Grace think he didn’t have such a good life before he met her.

“It has something to do with Sara, though. Doesn’t it?” 

He avoided her eyes.

“It does. If you know something that could help…”

He bit his lip and turned away.

“Okay, it’s okay,” She soothed. She’d try again later.

Billy sighed as he put away his phone, “We have to be back at your place at five.”

“Before five,” Grace told him. “I don’t know about me, but you’re going to have to get in the ocean to hide the smell of sweat.” 

He made a face just as Will got off his phone with a huff, “How you two got through that conversation without getting grounded is proof white people have it easy. I got my computer taken away.” 

Billy made another face and pointed at himself in disbelief. 

Will waved his hand. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

Grace only smirked as they continued bickering (she had learned to tune out Steve and Danno’s, so Billy and Will’s wasn’t so hard) and lead the way with her compass. She took a look at the time and decided they had a few more hours before they had to head back. Maybe they could find the portal today, and come back tonight. Sara didn’t have much time to spare. Every minute she was in the Upside Down with that monster was a minute too long.

They walked another hour, before Grace realized they had walked over the same fallen palm tree three times. 

She stopped quickly and stared at it, confused. Then down at her compass. Something wasn’t right.

“Wait a minute,” Will said. “We’ve been here before.”

“Yeah…” Grace agreed. “We have.”

That’s when Grace noticed Evan wiped at his nose, and then quickly at his shorts. His nosebleed; the tell tale sign he used his powers. Will and Billy saw it at the same time, it seemed.

“You!” Billy shouted. 

“Are you messing with the compass?” Will demanded to know.

Evan backed up several steps.

“Hold on, guys,” Grace started, but it was too late. Both boys were on Evan in a heartbeat.

“Why would you do that?” “Do you even want to find her?” “What good are you?” “She’s in danger man! You showed that to us yourself!” “How could you? We trusted you!” 

“Boys!” Grace tried, pulling back at Billy. But she was only one person, and couldn’t hold back both of them.

Will shoved Evan once, “Why don’t you want to help her?” twice.

“It’s dangerous,” Evan said softly.

Will huffed and pushed him again, this time Evan fell backwards and hit the ground. 

“Will!” Grace shouted. Then she rushed to Evan’s side. 

“Oh, sure, take his side,” Will said with a roll of the eyes.

“You’re the one that shoved him!” She shouted back at him. “Everyone just chill!” She waited a beat, taking a deep breath and letting it out. She watched as the boys did the same. Then she turned back to Evan. “Why would you do this?”

“It’s dangerous,” He said again.

“So you said,” Grace said. “Why is it dangerous?”

“They’ll kill you.”

“‘Kill?’” Will repeated, then he started pacing.

Billy dropped down to the ground, “Then let us take you to our dads.”

Evan shook his head, “They’ll kill them.” 

“This is what our dads do,” Will shouted at him. “They fight bad guys! They fight people that want to kill them all the time!” 

Evan looked like he wanted to cry. “It’d be my fault.”

Grace sat down on the dirt next to him. “If we don’t do anything, it’ll be all our faults.”

They all calmed at that statement. 

“Who would believe us?” Will asked, calm. “Everyone thinks Sara is dead.” 

“Uncle Chin! Let’s at least go to Uncle Chin,” Billy suggested. He turned and looked over his shoulder at Will. “Sara said he believed her.” 

Grace turned to Evan. “Can we do that? At least that? We’re in over our heads here.” 

Evan bit his lip, and moved to sit up. Slowly, after a moment, he nodded. “Just Chin.”

“Alright,” Billy said, standing up. He held a hand out Evan, who took it timidly. Everyone stood up. “We’ll go tonight. Talk my dad into taking us over there.” 

“See?” Grace said, hand on Evan’s arm. “We’ve got a plan. It’ll be okay.” 

“Fine,” Will huffed, pushing past them and towards the park. “Let’s get back to the house so we can get on with this ‘plan.’” 

“What’s your problem?” Grace called after him after he’d gone past them a few steps.

“Nothing.”

“You owe Evan an apology!” She called after him again.

He turned quickly. “Maybe he owes us one! We’ve been out here for hours wasting time that could have been helping Sara! And you’re enabling him!” 

“Me?” Grace asked.

Will huffed again and stormed off at a brisk pace.

“Will-” Grace moved to follow him. Billy held her back.

“Let him go.”

“Why?”

“He likes you,” Billy said. “Likes-likes you.” 

Grace felt her face redden. It was a thing that she was thinking that maybe kinda sorta they were heading towards, but not any time soon, and to hear it said out loud was embarrassing in the way she was expecting and thrilling in a way she wasn’t.

“What’s that have to do with it?” She ducked her head.

Billy gave her a face, looked towards Evan, and then back to Grace. “Right.”

“He thinks I like Evan? I don’t like Evan.”

Evan grew wide eyed. “You don’t like me?”

“Not like that.” Then Grace realized who she was talking to. The kid that didn’t really have an understanding of breakfast foods, let alone things like dating and boyfriends. “No… I like you fine, but as a friend. Like we talked about! What Billy is talking about is more than friends.”

“‘More than friends?’”

Billy nodded. “Like dating.” 

“‘Dating?’”

“Oh, boy, you’re hopeless,” Billy told him, crossing his arms.

“I like you, you’re my friend,” Grace told Evan straight in the eye. Then she turned to Billy. “Will is being stupid, Evan is a unique situation!” 

Billy eyed her.

“I don’t like Evan like that.”

Then Billy grinned. “Like you like Will?” 

Grace felt her face redden again. She squirmed for a second before finally, “...yes. Okay. Yes. Are you happy?” 

“Very,” Billy said, smug. Then he started walking towards the direction Will went. “Sara’s going to be upset she missed that.” 

“What does that mean?”

Billy said nothing in return.

Evan stared at Grace, uneasy. 

Grace sighed, “Let’s go.” 

~~~

 

Danny  
~  
Abby had called and gone on an impressive rant that Chin wasn’t cooperating with making funeral plans, and it didn’t help that Kono had bought into it. She was dealing with a barrel of crazy and trying to hold everything together. Danny could tell Abby was frustrated, but that wasn’t Chin’s fault. Chin had been through so much lately…

The team was spread a bit thin. With Sara’s body being found, they decided to turn their efforts towards Kamekona. Lou and Meka were following half a lead, Abby was focusing on Chin, and Steve and Danny went to check on Kamekona. 

They were in Kamekona’s hospital room eating lunch. With everything going on with Sara, they really hadn’t checked up on their friend. Flippa had been standing guard, and understood their absence completely; said Kamekona would understand the importance of putting all their focus towards a little girl. Kamekona was hurt, but they knew where he was and what state he was in. Sara was a different story entirely. 

“Mia Huikala was catatonic, Steve. It’s not worth going back to see her.” Danny said. 

“Her son-” Steve had his head down to his tablet, reading the file Jerry put together, “-Nahele… he’d be Grace’s age?”

“Just a little older.”

“And we have no idea where he is now?” 

Danny shook his head. “Kid fell through the cracks just because no one was looking for him. He could be anywhere.” 

“Sounds familiar,” Steve said, taking a bite of his sandwich.

Danny chewed on his cheek at that statement. He knew Steve was adopted, and knew it was a sore subject for the man, and knew very little about where he was before his mother had brought him home. From the gist of things, Steve knew very little himself. Danny had always wondered if the man wanted to dig into his uncovered past or not. Now was not the time to bring it up.

“Jerry’s theory is he ended up at Crater Labs?” 

Danny nodded. “Human experiments.”

“Hmm,” Steve mused. Then he sighed as he took another big bite.

“Something doesn’t add up.”

“About what?”

“Crater Labs.” 

Steve grinned. “You hate government secrets.” 

“So do you.” 

“True,” He sat forward and dropped the tablet at the foot of Kamekona’s bed. “What’s on your mind, partner?” He grinned. ‘Partner.’ Not ‘honey.’ Steve wanted him to think like a cop, and Danny was grateful for the compartmentalization. 

“It’s just… strange.” Danny sat his food down on his lap. “Sara goes missing the same day Kamekona gets shot,” He pointed up to his friend still asleep in his coma. “He says he finds a runaway boy, ‘about Grace’s age’ - he said - the same day. Sara’s investigation leads to a boy about Grace’s age... It’s just a major coincidence I don’t fully trust.”

“It happens sometimes, the world is a busy place.” 

“I just keep thinking about the new lock.”

“What?”

“On the gate on the tunnel into Diamond Head. I looked at it. The gate is old and rusted, but that lock is brand spakin’ new.”

“So? Locks get old and get replaced all the time.” 

“It’s an emergency route, Steve. Emergency usually means easily opened.”

“Security upgrades.”

“There are no security requirements to get into Diamond Head. Hell, tourists walk the rim all the time! It’s the buildings themselves that have the requirements. And why couldn’t we gotten into Crater Labs? What’s so important we couldn’t have gone inside?”

“You want to get in there, don’t you?” 

“...yes.” 

“Then let’s get in there.” 

“Steve,” He rolled his eyes. “For what reason?” 

“Look,” Steve sat forward. “Lou and Meka are running down leads for Kamekona. Something’s not sitting right for you with this science lab. So let’s deal with that.”

Danny sighed. He had another suspicion. 

“What?”

“What if Jerry’s right?” Danny admitted. “What if there was a baby taken?”

“Then we get that kid safe and away from human experiments.” 

“Sounds so ridiculous,” Danny said, leaning back and running a hand over his face.

“But…”

“But… a boy about Grace’s age - Nahele’s age - was spotted near Kamekona’s truck. That’s a couple miles from the tunnel exit, where the torn cloth was found. A kid could have easily made it that far. And if they shot Kamekona over him…”

Steve’s eyes slid over to a sleeping Kamekona. “Do you think we need to put protection on him?” 

“I think he’s fine as long as he’s asleep, but I’d sit better.” 

“God,” Steve groaned. “What if Jerry’s right?” 

“Right? Do you see where I’m at? Plus, Sara went back into the woods for a reason. She didn’t just get lost, she saw something that made her abandon her bike and run.” 

That’s when Danny’s phone rang to let him know Grace had skipped class.

~~~

 

 

Chin  
~  
He finally had a lead. A real lead. Albeit one that if he told any of his team he’d be locked away and Kono would be taken away from him, but still. A lead. He had pulled his shotgun shells out of his gun locker and loaded up a bag of bullets and an old boar trap. Whatever it was that chased Sara and Kono was out in the woods, and he was going to find where it came from. Give Sara a fighting chance.

“I can help!” Kono insisted as he walked around his house gathering supplies. “I’ve seen it!” 

“The fact you and Sam went into those woods at all is enough to give me a heart attack,” He said, unlocking his gun locker. “I’m not letting you come with me.”

Sara’s lights had been quiet since the night before, when that thing tried to… break through? It’s the only way to describe it. Sara was somewhere else, somewhere close, but so far away there might as well be an ocean between them. But she hadn’t shown up, he couldn’t convince Kono. 

But when Kono came clean to him about being chased by a faceless monster in the woods… Chin’s desperate reach for hope found a grip.

“I can help you kill it!” She said, a little later as he was counting bullets. 

“We can’t kill it, Kono.” 

“What?” 

“Sara’s alive, in the place where it comes from!” 

“Cuz…”

“I know you don’t believe me about Sara, but listen. It’s coming from someplace. I’ve got to find out where that is… a door, or a portal, or something!” 

“Whatever it is just a mutated animal!” Kono yelled at him. “I think it got Jenna.”

“Then you understand why I have to help Sara.”

She came with him to his storage unit, where all Malia’s things were, where all his parents things were… just a room with filled memories and grief. It hit him as he pushed the gate open wide that if he failed he’d have another person’s things in this room. Sara’s things piled neatly into boxes to be ignored and let fester. There was a small patch of empty concrete that could hold it all, and he stared at it for a moment, full of fear.

“What if it eats you?” 

Chin was knocked out of it. “Eats me? You think it eats people?” 

“It has to eat something,” She shrugged. “What are we here for again?” 

“My father’s old boar traps. They are illegal now, but this is a special circumstance.” 

“Do you really think a boar trap can stop it?” 

He shrugged, moving into the storage room. “It's the same thing that stops bears. If it’s stronger than a bear, Sara’s not the only one in danger.”

Kono stood quiet while he dug. Glancing over he saw that she was hugging herself and biting her lip.

“Hey,” Chin said. He was her guardian, and the last few days he’d rocked her world. Now that he had a little bit of footing back he felt stronger. “It’s going to be okay.”

She rocked a little bit, and avoided his eye. “It’s just…” She shook herself and moved to help him go through boxes. “Nevermind. It’s stupid.”

“Hey, we’re monster hunting here,” He tried to grin. “It’s not like you can make it weirder.” 

She let out a chuckle and rolled her eyes. She shrugged again, pulling a box down from the stack. “This… place you think Sara’s in.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think Jenna could be there too?”

“Do I think Jenna could be alive?” He asked, knowing his cousin.

Kono didn’t meet his eye, opening one of the boxes to lazily look through it, but she nodded.

Hope was an addictive thing.

“Yeah, maybe. If she’s quick and smart, like Sara.”

“Sara’s little. She can hide in more places.”

He reached out and grasped her arm. Having any kind of direction of what to do did wonders for him. He was feeling like his old self again, finally. “We’ll figure this all out. We’ll find out what happened to her too.” 

Kono nodded, stabilizing herself. Chin felt proud of himself in that moment. 

“But you aren’t coming with me.”

“I know how to use a gun.” 

“Something I can blame on your mother.” 

“She wanted me to be able to handle myself, and I can! I got away from the thing yesterday!”

Chin’s phone rang. He dug in his pocket for it.

“You’re not coming.”

“Chin Ho!”

“Kono!” He shot back at her in the same tone. 

He looked down at his phone; it was Abby.

“Hello?” He answered.

“Where are you? You’re not at home.”

“I… had to pick up a few things.” 

“Then do you want to meet me at the funeral home?” 

Ice ran down his back. “That’s not Sara,” He said, jaw tight. “I won’t bury a fake.” 

“Chin, please,” She pleaded.

“No, Abby. I’m not crazy.”

“Think of Kono,” She tried.

He looked over at his cousin, watching him closely, and swallowed a lump in his throat. “I am thinking of Kono.”

“Chin…”

“I’ll talk to you later. Right now, Sara needs me. No one else believes she’s… She needs me.”  
Click. He hung up.

~~~

 

 

Steve  
~  
Stakeouts were the worst part of the job. One hundred percent. Give him something to chase. He sat in the driver’s seat, agitated. They were sitting in the parking lot of the tsunami warning building and Danny had binoculars on Crater Labs, watching the comings and goings. 

“We’ll probably have our best luck at shift change,” Danny said, eyes still glued to the building’s gate. 

“We got some gate cutters, we’ll have to go in from the side,” Steve said, popping his neck. There was something… something familiar. He couldn’t place it. It had to be a similar mission to something he’d done before.

Danny moved the binoculars around a bit. “There’s a drainage pipe on the east side.” Steve strained his eyes; they should really invest in a second pair of binoculars. “That’s a good point of weakness.” 

Steve held out his hand, “Le’me see.” 

Danny handed them over and Steve found the spot he was talking about. A dip in the ground, surrounded by palm bushes. The pipe was large, but not large enough for a grown man. They’d have to cut through the fence. Surely they could just walk in, storm through from there. See what they could see before whatever happened. They needed to call Meka and Lou before they stormed the gates. 

Then Steve scanned over the compound. Check for entrances to the building. That’s when Steve saw half a basketball court and something in the back of his head… wiggled. Something about making men… sleepy? That’s not right. 

He looked down and shook his head. 

“You okay?” Danny asked. “Your headache isn’t back, is it?” 

Steve shook his head, “No. It’s just. Weird, is all.” He lifted his focus back up, trying to shake off a mental image of a bunch of grown men all laying down and going to sleep… and holding out a hand… and… he shook his head again.

Hopefully shift change wasn’t too far away.

~

Turns out shift change wasn’t until sundown, which meant they were waiting a few hours and the hazy gray of oncoming night would help cover them as they snuck inside. Cutting the gate and slipping through to the front doors was easy enough. There was no security once they got through the front doors. This was as far as Danny got before anyway. They had two stories to go through, so they had to act fast. 

Most of the top floor was offices and some generic looking labs. Most of the workforce had left for the day, and those left only gave them a curious glance as they acted like they were where they belonged.

They found themselves in an elevator to evade a guard. 

“Hurry!” Steve urged.

“Shh!” Danny shot back. 

“This place is super generic, Danny, I don’t know…”

“Why are there eight buttons for a two floor lab?” Danny asked, pointing at the elevator controls.

“Interesting,” Steve said. He reached forward and pushed SB6 - the lowest floor - only to have the elevator ask for credentials. He pressed SB5, same prompt, and again when he pressed SB4 and SB3. The elevator accepted his request for basement two, and jerked alive. 

The jerk threw Steve back. It was familiar in the same way the smell of his father’s cologne was. Something was there, just in the back of his mind. A bunch of memories of being small and in an elevator flushed over him. Generic and… exactly like this one. He turned to look over his shoulder to see the dent in the wall, just like he was expecting.

He’d been here before. 

Dread settled in his stomach; he’d been here when he was little.

The elevator jerked to a stop and the doors slid open to reveal three men pointing guns at them. Danny backed into a defensive position instantly, but Steve held up a hand instinctively. And, with an old muscle he hadn’t used in a long time, all three men dropped their guns and began fighting sleep. Steve… pushed a little bit… and all three laid down or fell down against the wall and were snoring. 

Steve lowered his hand and glanced over at Danny out of the corner of his eye. There was a tiny pulse of a migraine, but it faded quickly. 

“What the hell?” Danny asked.

Steve covered his mouth in disbelief. “Let’s go, Danny.” 

“What just happened?” Danny asked as he followed Steve out of the elevator. Steve was checking the guard’s ID badges, looking for any that had clearance to the lowest floor. That’s where they needed to be. Steve didn’t know how he knew - didn’t want to think about how he knew - but that’s where they needed to be.

“I’ve been here before.” 

“Have you always been able to put people to sleep?” 

“I think I can do more than that.” 

“What does that mean?”

“Jerry was right,” He told Danny, holding his gaze for a second, before moving into the hallway. He’d push forward until he found someone with the right clearance badge, or so help him.

“That’s comforting,” Danny sighed. 

With every step through the compound, another memory would fire up in his brain. Flashes, really. Of screaming, of fighting, of being cold. They found a lab with half a dozen people, all sudden nerves and anxiety and Steve held up his hand again and… pushed. Slowly but surely, the room settled into a calm that Steve knew creeped Danny out. 

“Anyone got clearance for basement six?” Steve asked, gun raised. A woman held up her badge, and Steve walked across the room to take it from her. She tightened her grip on it, and he pushed again, and she let go with a soft smile. 

Danny was standing at the door, wide eyed and confused. Steve shrugged. Then, without even looking up, and using that same, old, forgotten muscle, he willed the room to fall asleep. One by one everyone in the lab curled up at their lab desk or laid on the floor and went to sleep.

Steve tried not to panic as he moved to leave, find the elevator again.

“Steve,” Danny started.

“I know, Danny, but I don’t know,” Steve answered. “This is freaking me out too.”

“No, I mean yeah,” Danny said, “But your nose…” He brushed up against his own.

Steve reached up and mirrored him and pulled away to see that he had a nose bleed. The migraine in the back of his head pulsed again before fading away. Whatever it was he was doing, there was a physical sign of it. He was actually doing this…

He suddenly had a flashback to some kind of temper tantrum. A scream and a splitting headache and everyone around him on the floor in pain. A moment to run, a moment to get away… and… someone in front of him. A boy, a little older than him, but a boy all the same. With a grin like the man in his dream in the black-

The black! The inbetween! 

He couldn’t think about this right now. He needed some answers, some proof.

“Come on, Danny.”

“What’s happening to you?” 

“Later, Danny, right now, let’s get downstairs.” 

“Why?” 

“Because it’s getting stronger the further down we go.” 

“What’s getting stronger?” 

Now that he’s said it, it’s true. A pulse, or a magnet. The further down they go, the more he remembered.

“I don’t know,” He answered, mostly truthfully. 

The ride down the elevator was a tense one. He knew Danny had questions, but Steve wouldn’t have answers unless they kept going. The beep of the elevator as they descended was even familiar; this is where he was from. How did he get away from this place?

The elevator opened to a dark hallway. There was some kind of ash floating around and even that was familiar. He couldn’t place it, where it came from, but he remembered seeing the floating ash before. Back when he and Six opened the other side-

Six! He remembered Six! That’s was the boy in his memory, the man in the inbetween. 

He glanced down at his forearm to the barely there, faded tattoo. ‘007.’ He was Seven. So many James Bond jokes, owned by the government jokes over the years, they didn’t know how close they got.

Danny pulled out his gun, feeling some kind of danger. Steve was numb with remembering his instincts were off, so he followed Danny’s lead. He walked forward curiously. Where was everyone? 

The tank - oh god the tank; his stomach flipped in fear - was down the hall and to the right, but to the left… there should be monitors and a whole panel of computers. Maybe they changed things. It had been decades since he’d been here after all. XX

They rounded the corner and there it was; the portal. Steve remembered now. He’d seen it before. Remembered the giant monster that poked itself through to peek around. Remembered how Six was pushed too hard and he tore open a hole. Remembered how he was terrified and the headache afterward…

“What the hell?” Danny asked. He walked forward, inspecting it. 

“Wait, Danny,” Steve said, grabbing Danny’s arm. “Don’t.” 

“What?” 

Suddenly they were rushed with a dozen men with machine guns and tactical gear. Danny took another defensive step back. They were outnumbered, but Steve held a hand up. 

“Don’t do it!” One of the men shouted pointing with his gun, but he was too late, Steve had already started pushing.

He wanted to try something. Something from a long time ago, a large push and suddenly all the men in front of him were laughing. Guns lowered as men and women threw their heads back with loud and deep laughs. Steve smirked as a warm memory floated through his brain. A woman with honey blonde hair, laughing at him as she ran a hand over his newly shaved head. 

“Good job, Seven,” She had said, coming down from her laughter. It made Steve feel good, her smile.

Then Steve dropped the push. The soldiers stopped laughing. He started to breathe heavy and searched his memory for any more of the woman and they were all from when he was older. There was no way - no way…

Suddenly, with a woosh, all the soldiers were gone. Steve dropped his hand and he felt Danny tense up behind him again. 

 

“Steve?” Danny asked. “Steve where are you?”

Steve remembered this too. “I”m right here Danny.”

And with that, around the corner walked in Six. He had a vibrant blue shirt on with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a tight vest that matched his slacks. A giant step up from the hospital gowns they grew up in.

“Hello, brother,” He greeted.

Steve lifted a hand to protect himself and pushed, hopefully Six would fall asleep. No luck, as the push just blew past the man like it was wind. A twinge of pain floated through Steve’s head.

Six only smirked and then he tisked. “So it looks like the prodigal son is still missing some of his memories. Your powers don’t work on me, brother. They never have. We never quite figured out why.” 

Then Six turned away from him, like he was listening to someone behind him, though Steve couldn’t see him.

He remembered. Six could make you see things, create scenarios. Make people invisible to you. Steve turned to Danny.

“The soldiers are still there,” Steve told him. 

“What do you mean? Where are you?”

“It’s an illusion,” Steve said. “I’m right here.”

Six smiled. “Very good! What else do you remember?” 

Steve reached out again, lifted his hand, and found the soldiers even if he couldn’t see them. Pushed something dark and angry at them. Pain. He didn’t like doing it, but might as well.

Six looked around him then, shocked at the sight of what was probably a dozen men writhing in pain. 

“Stop!” Six shouted. “Stop!” 

“What is this place?” Steve shouted back. “How did the portal open again?” 

Six ignored him, listening to some invisible person, and then he sighed. His jaw tightened and he rolled his eyes before waving his hand and another person appeared. The same honey blonde woman from his memory, from so many memories.

“Mother?” He asked, shocked.

That’s when Danny let out a yelp of pain and Steve turned to see that a soldier had snuck up behind him and stuck him with some kind of needle. Then Steve felt his own prick of a needle in his arm before the dizziness hit him. The growing pain in his head faded, but so did his vision. 

“Mother…” He sighed as his knees went out. 

Someone lowered him to the floor slowly, and then he was out.


	7. Chapter Six

Abby  
~  
She loved Chin. It was there and new and scary but she did. He had a lot of loss in his past, and yet he was so strong and so stoic it was attractive. A tsunami could rock his world and he just stood as strong as a rock. But, she supposed, everyone had their breaking point. The lights were one thing, and even denial was part of grief, but the man was tearing up his walls with an axe and was now chasing something out in the woods on his teenage cousin’s word.

“Kono,” she started with a sigh. “The last thing he needs is enabling.” 

“I’m not saying I believe him about Sara,” Kono said. “God knows I’d like to. But there’s something out in those woods, and we both think it has something to do with Sara!”

Chin’s house was a mess, but Kono was armed with a baseball bat herself. Whatever this folie ȁ deux was, Abby didn’t know how to help.

Her boyfriend out in the woods with a loaded shotgun was not going to help, no matter what he was thinking. 

“I’m going after him,” Abby said with a huff.

“Be sure to take your gun!” Kono told her, like a seven foot monster was real. “That thing’s fast, and who knows how it is at night.” 

Abby stared at her for a moment. Grief was a funny thing.

She was leaving just as Adam showed up on the front door, ready to knock. She turned back to Kono, “I don’t like you here alone with him.” 

“I’d honestly feel a bit safer with someone here,” Kono said. “Besides, Grace called. She and the boys are coming over here soon.”

“The kids? Why?”

Kono shrugged. “Sara was their friend. I’m sure they are just as torn up about this whole thing as we are.”

“Right,” Abby said, eyeing Adam. Then she pointed at him, “I’m trusting you.”

“Yes ma’am,” Adam said with a nod. “I care about Kono.”

“So do you buy into this monster story?”

Adam rocked on his feet as Kono crossed her arms. Something told Abby she and Adam were in the same boat. “Kono believes in it, ma’am. I believe they saw something. My money’s on an overgrown boar.” 

Abby sighed. “You’re probably right.”

Kono rolled her eyes and let out a huff. “Boars don’t like the southern island woods. Too many people.” 

“A manic one, then,” Adam told her.

Kono rolled her eyes again, before turning to Abby. “Please take your gun.” 

Abby nodded. 

Once in the parking lot near the woods at the edge of the park, Abby turned on her locator app. All of Five-0 had one in their phones; it tracked them down to three feet. This way she could find Chin the technology way, and not stumble around in the dark looking for tracks and calling his name.

It took her about a half hour, but she was getting closer to his flashing dot. The thick jungle of the woods made it harder and harder to walk, especially when all she had was her single flashlight. 

That’s when she heard a rustle behind her. She paused, everything she had learned about boar attacks gone from her mind the moment she needed them. Was she supposed to hold still? Make a run for it? She couldn’t remember. She turned slowly and flashed her flashlight in the direction of the rustle. There, in the beam of her flashlight, stood a good forty pound boar, roaring and heading straight towards her. She backed up quickly, reaching for her gun. It got closer and closer, its tusks gleaming in the light and

BAM it squealed as the bullet hit it between the eyes and it hit the ground with one last grumble and slid to a stop about fifteen feet away, dead.

Abby took a deep breath. All this crazy monster talk for a real, live boar. A monster in its own right, and scary enough to make a twelve year old run for her life - scary enough to make anyone run for their lives - but natural. Nothing ridiculous without a face like Kono described.

She caught her breath and looked down at her phone again. The little red dot that told her where Chin was was still a bit to the east, but she was hoping her gunshot would bring him closer to her.

Her hopes were right when they greeted each other only a few minutes later.

“Abby?” He asked as he broke through some large palm leaves. 

“Chin,” She sighed. “I’m worried about you.”

“You think I’m crazy.”

“I think you’re grieving,” She said, pushing sweat dowsed hair behind her ear.

“So you came into the woods after me?”

She shrugged. “What else was I going to do?”

He let out the softest of a grin before asking, “Was that gunshot you?” 

“Yeah,” She looked back from the way she came. “The boar you guys thought was a monster. I got it just before it got me, poor thing.”

“‘Poor thing?’”

“It was probably just as scared as I was.” 

Chin bit his lip and looked her up and down, apprehensive. “It’s not a boar.” 

“Whatever it is, can we not go looking for it in the dark?” She asked. “Your cousin is as home, scared.”

Chin looked guilty. 

“I left her with Adam?” 

He looked up at that. “She’s alone with Adam?”

“Can we go home now?” She asked, hoping that would strive him to action.

He let out a sad huff and threw his shotgun over his shoulder, “Let’s see this boar, and then we can go.” 

“Alright,” She said. “It was back this way.”

They retraced her steps, not talking much. She took Chin’s hand anyway. She had chosen to come to this island for a fresh start. New city, new job. But even with all the opportunity, her biggest factor in moving was Chin. She came to this place to build something with him. When Sara came along, it just felt like things were falling into place. She wasn’t about to give up on that now. She was going to stand with him through this. Help him through it.

That’s when they heard some wet crunching sounds. Chin squeezed her hand and pulled her to a stop, pushing her behind him. He pulled up his shotgun and she followed suit and pulled out her gun. For all she knew, boars ran in packs - why was her Hawaii Safety 101 failing her right now?

They moved forward slowly, and Abby recognized their surroundings as the small opening of jungle where she faced down the boar. Were boars cannibalistic? Would it really eat its own? That’s what it sounded like; something chowing down on something else. 

Stepping forward, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Something humanoid, bent over and taking another huge bite out of the boar in front of it. From the looks of things, it had already made half a meal of the poor beast. Abby covered her mouth to keep the involuntary gasp from being too loud.

Chin held up a hand, and slowly, and as quietly as he could, cocked his shotgun.

The click-click it made was foreign enough in this terrain that the thing stopped, looked up, and then around. Abby saw that it’s head was opened up in a terrifying array of teeth and mouth. They were hidden behind a palm bush, but somehow it still spotted them and jumped towards them. Abby jumped back quickly, but Chin stood up and stood his ground and let out a shot.

Click-click. He loaded it again, and bam he let off another shell.

The second shell hit it, and it let out an inhuman screech before turning and running.

“Come on!” Chin said, chasing after it.

“What?” Abby asked. “No way!” 

“We’ve got to find where it came from!” He argued.

“Why?” 

“Because that’s where Sara is!” 

“Chin!”

He sighed, and decided not to wait on her. He took after it. 

She stood there, breathing heavy, trying to find her footing. Staring down at the half eaten boar, she tried to calm her panic. The monster was real. Holy shit, the monster was real. Chin and Kono… they weren’t delusional. He said that it’s where Sara-

-that’s where Sara was. 

That kicked her into gear. Courage surged through her. Immediately, the grip on her gun tightened and she was off after him. If facing down that thing could help Sara, then by God she was going after it too.

She followed the light of Chin’s flashlight, running as fast as the terrain would allow her. She caught up with him just as he was diving for a… was that a hole in a palm tree? As she got closer, it was clear the hole was getting smaller and soon Chin would be stuck.

Without thinking much of how this was happening, she pulled back on Chin. She realized he had abandoned his shotgun next to them. What was he thinking going in after that thing without any kind of protection. 

“Chin, no!” She yelled at him.

“I have to go!” He called back.

“We’ll find another way!” She shouted back. “You’ll be stuck!” 

She pulled and felt relief when he started pushing back out of the tree too. He pulled back, covered in some kind of goop with a grunt. He was breathing heavy and looked so frustrated he was ready to start crying.

“I could have made it,” He practically growled.

“And then what? That thing could eat you.” 

He rolled his eyes. “That thing could eat Sara. She’s been running from it for days, she’s getting weaker!” 

“We’ll find another way,” she tried to soothe.

“How?” 

“I don’t know, but we shouldn’t do this alone.”

“So you believe me?” 

She took a deep breath and watched as the hole in the tree slowly closed in on itself. “I believe you.” 

~~~

 

Kono  
~  
Three barely-teens were not exactly what Kono wanted to deal with right now. Her cousin was off monster hunting a dangerous monster and Adam was still not believing her. But Meka had dropped them off to spend the night. She had to lie and say Chin would be right back, unsure if her Uncle Meka would understand. The kids had lost their friend; a night in her room was what they deserved. 

But when they came over to find Chin gone, they were distraught.

“Why do you want to see Chin so bad?” She asked. “Have I lost my touch?” 

“What?” Will asked. “No. It’s just… Uncle Chin… knew things.” 

“‘Knew things.’”

All three kids nodded. 

“I know things,” she said, crossing her arms. 

She watched as Billy gave an impressive eye roll. 

“What? I know things!” she said.

Adam came forward and clutched her arm. “You’re just not cool anymore,” he joked. 

She gave him a dark look.

That’s when the lights flashed. The Christmas lights lit up, and flashed on and then off all the way down the hall. They all stood still and watched. Kono only hugged herself tighter.

“What was that?” Grace asked. “I mean, I like what you've done with the place, but what’s with the lights?” 

Kono took in a deep breath and let out a deep sigh. Then she sat down on the couch with a huff. “Chin thinks they are Sara. Somehow.” 

This didn’t seem to confuse the kids, but somehow excited them.

“Sara!” “That explains the flashing lights at your house, Grace, she was trying to talk to us!” “So, somehow electric current goes through worlds.” “Not electric... magnetic.” “Same thing!” “No it’s not!” “How do you explain the lights!” “No one knows how magnets work, Billy!” “Electric, magnetic, it doesn’t matter! If the lights are Sara, that means she’s here! She’s still alive!” 

“Actually electromagnetic is a thing,” Adam said to the flurry of excitement. “Things can get magnetized because of a lot of electricity.” 

“See!” Billy said, smug.

“You guys believe Sara’s still alive? I saw her body, guys.”

“We’ve talked to her,” Grace said, certain.

Kono’s stomach flipped. “When?” 

“Last night. After they found her body.” 

Her stomach flipped again.

“How?” 

Grace stalled, looking between the boys.

“Oh, for heaven’s sa-” Will said, throwing his arms up. “We’ve got to start trusting people. Evan’s just got to deal that we need help!” 

“Who’s Evan?” Kono asked.

Grace bit her lip and turned to her with apprehension in her eyes. “He can talk to Sara.” 

“How?” 

“It’s best if we show you.” 

~

The kids had talked her into taking them to Grace’s house. Adam came along grudgingly. Apparently she needed to meet someone. The boys decided that if they got Kono on their side, they’d somehow be more believable. Like she was an adult voice in a room of adults. She didn’t want to break their hearts that she was treated just as much a kid as they were. But they were so adamant, so sure. And Kono wanted to have hope. She needed hope. 

She started up the walk towards the house, but all three kids stopped her, and motioned for them to go to the garage. They walked up, but stopped at the door.

Grace pulled out her set of keys and unlocked the door slowly. She peaked her head inside.

“Evan?” she asked. Kono couldn’t see inside. “Evan, we brought some people, okay? They are good people. Don’t freak out.” 

She opened the door wider and she and the boys pushed in. When she and Adam walked through the door, she saw a boy - about the kid’s age - with a shaved head wearing what looked like one of Steve’s old Navy shirts. Above his head floated a crow bar and a couple screwdrivers.

“Whoa,” Kono stood back.

“What the hell!” Adam shouted in shock.

A screwdriver flew forward and Adam ducked, just in time for it to stick into the door frame behind his head.

“Whoa, whoa,” Grace said, running around the car. “They’re friends!”

The boy was breathing heavy, a small trickle of blood running from his nose. 

“They’re friends!” 

Slowly, the second screwdriver floated back down to the workbench, and the crowbar floated down to his hands. He eyed Adam and narrowed his eyes at him.

Adam held up his hands. “We come in peace!” 

Kono rolled her eyes and smacked his shoulder.

“He’s not an alien!” Grace told him. “He’s a human boy.”

“Who can move things with his mind,” Will grumbled. He and Evan shared a dark look. 

Grace rolled her eyes, “We don’t have time for you to be rotten about this.” Then she turned to Evan. “This is Kono and Adam.”

Evan nodded. “Kono, Adam, this is Evan. Or, we call him Evan.” 

“What else do you go by?” Adam asked. “Obi Wan Kenobi?” 

Kono smacked his arm again. 

“He can talk to Sara, if she’s still okay.”

They spent some time talking about (“it’s some kind of inbetween place.” “Inbetween what?” “Our world and the Upside Down.” “The Upside Down?” “Yeah, that’s where we think Sara is.”) the place where Sara was, (“It’s like our world, but not. Different.” “Home to monsters. She’s not safe there.”) and about the monster that Kono saw (“The Demogorgon.” “The… what?” “That’s what we’ve been calling it. The Demogorgon.” “You mean it can get to our world?” “That’s a good thing, if it can get here, then so can Sara.”).

Evan was quiet, only filling in a few things here and there, but at the talk of the Demogorgon, he sat up straight. He’d seen it too. From the sounds of things, the other kids had only heard about it, which was good. They didn’t need that kind of horror in their lives. But Evan, Evan had seen it.

“So is Sara still alive?” 

“I don’t know… Evan? Can you talk to her again?” 

“I can try,” he told them.

“Can… can you find another person, if they are in the Upside Down?” 

Evan nodded. “A picture helps.” 

“Someone else is there?” Billy asked, hopeful. “Maybe they can help Sara!” 

Kono nodded. “My friend Jenna,” She opened up her phone and scrolled through her photos. “She’s been missing for a few days. Went missing near the woods.” 

Adam sighed. 

Kono eyed him. He saw a kid move shit with his mind and he still didn’t believe. It was getting frustrating.

She held out her phone to Evan to show her a photo of her, Jenna, and Sam. “She’s the one in the middle.”

Evan nodded, and then pushed his way to open the driver’s side of the car. 

“What’s he doing?” 

“Shut up,” Will told him.

They all piled into the car with him as he turned the radio on and adjusted the static.

“We have to be quiet,” Grace told them from the passenger seat. Kono nodded, but Adam sat back with a sigh, looking awkward so close between Will and Billy in the backseat.

~~~

 

 

Evan  
~  
He was in the black again. The inbetween. He was focusing on Kono’s friend Jenna. There was a hole in the ground in the distance. He walked toward it. It was covered in vines, like most of the Upside Down was. He got closer, and closer, and saw that the hole had some kind of ladder down into it. He’d seen pictures. This was a swimming pool, but empty of the water. He kneeled down and looked over the edge to see Kono’s friend, eyes wide, restricted by vines. She looked pale and he felt sad. She was so still. He watched as a slug slowly crawled out of her unmoving mouth.

He opened his eyes quickly, not wanting to see any more.

“So?” Kono asked him.

He turned in the seat and shook his head.

“You couldn’t find her, no? Or she’s-”

Evan didn’t say anything more, but the look on his face must have given him away. She sat back with a pained expression. 

“What about Sara?” Billy asked.

“I’ll try again,” Evan said, turning in the seat and closing his eyes.

He was once again in the black. 

In the distance there was a beach. Evan walked towards the steady rhythm of the waves, but instead of the vast distance he saw from Grace’s back yard, he could only see about ten feet before the water vanished into the dark. There was no sky, no moon, no stars. Only black. 

“Hey!” he heard behind him.

He turned quickly. He saw the big rocks that lined Grace’ back yard. Sara had taken refuge at a familiar place. 

Off in the distance he heard Grace shushing someone, but he ignored it, focusing on Sara.

“Kono wants to know you’re okay,” he told her.

“Can she hear me?” 

Evan nodded.

“I’m scared, Kono.”

He heard Kono say something back, though he couldn’t make out what it was. The beach grew fuzzy around him. 

“She hears you,” he told her before he lost the connection. “Stay safe.”

“The monster,” she said. “It’s hunting right now. It’s in your world.” 

Evan turned around again and the beach was gone. Instead he was deep in the jungle from this afternoon. In a clearing he saw the Demogorgon kneeling over and eating some kind of pig. Then he heard a click-click and the Demogorgon turned towards the sound. Gunshots fired! And again! The second time, the monster squealed, and ran away from Evan into the dark.

He turned around, looking for the source of the gun, but found himself staring straight at Six. He didn’t see Evan, and Evan couldn’t hear him, but he was in a car with someone. Evan looked closer. He was in a car with Mother! 

That’s when Evan felt a shake, knocking him out of the inbetween and back into the car with his new friends.

“Someone’s here!” Grace said to him. The boys were peering through the windows on the garage door. 

Adam was too. “It looks like government cars.”

Evan’s heart soared.

“The bad people,” he told Grace with urgency.

“‘The bad people?’” Kono repeated. “Who-”

“We don’t have time,” Will said, pulling Adam towards the ladder. “We’ve got to hide!” 

Billy dove for the lightswitch, but Grace stopped him, already out of her side of the car.

“They’ve already seen the lights on!” She whispered loudly. “We’ve just got to get to the landing, and lift the ladder, and hope for the best.” 

“Go, go, go,” Will was pushing Adam up the ladder. 

They all rushed quickly. Once they were at the top, Grace was looking out the blinds from the top window. 

“They have my dad on a stretcher!” She told the room.

“What?” Kono asked, rushing to the window. “They’ve got Uncle Steve too!”

Evan was last up the ladder, but he was already frightened. 

“Someone’s coming!” Kono said. “Thirty seconds!” 

“Get the ladder!” Adam said. 

The boys started lifting it after Evan got off, but it would take too long. Evan was quick to reach out and lift it with his mind. He turned it as quickly as he could as everyone stared at the display. He sat it down as quietly as he could, and then wiped the blood from his nose.

“Everyone against the back wall!” Kono ordered. Everyone complied, backing towards the wall, as far into the shadows as they could get, hoping whoever came out to the garage wouldn’t look up.

Just then, a man opened the door and looked around. Evan lifted his hand, ready to fight back and protect his friends, but waiting. The man, wearing some kind of ninja suit, looked around, took a few photographs, but never looked up. Whatever he was looking at seemed to satisfy him, and he left, leaving everything as he left it.

Evan lowered his arm and sighed. Together, they waited out the swarm of agents and soldiers that went in and out of Grace’s house. 

Once they left, everyone let out a collective breath.

“Believe me now?” Kono asked Adam.

“Yeah, something's happening.” He turned to Adam. “Care to share Obi Wan?”


	8. Chapter Seven: The Flashbacks

Steve  
~ _  
“Can you make him angry?” Mother asked._

_Seven nodded. He reached out pushed. The man on the other side of the glass went from sitting calmly at an empty table to flipping the table and screaming and punching the wall in an instant._

_“Can you calm him down again?” she asked._

_Seven pushed again. The man was immediately calmed._

_“Good! You no longer need physical contact! You’ve made quite the advancement.”_

_Seven smiled. He liked making Mother happy._

_~_

_“Again!” Mother yelled._

_Seven pushed as hard as he could, but to no avail, Six didn’t have a mood swing._

_“Again!”_

_“I tried!” He sat down, tired. His head hurt._

_“Again!”_

_“No!” he whined._

_“Seven!” she warned. She pulled on his elbow roughly, pulling him to stand up again. “Make your brother laugh!”_

_“I can’t!”_

_“That’s not good enough!”_

_“No!”_

_She turned to the orderlies. “Take him to the room.”_

_“No! I’ll keep trying! I promise! I’ll try.”_

_“No, you need some time to yourself!”_

_“No!”_

_They dragged him down the hall and he fought the whole way. The room was dark and quiet and cold and they’d lock him in for days. He fought until the grips they had on his arms left bruises in the shapes of fingers. At the last moment he turned and pushed something new, something painful towards them. All the hurt he felt with every needle, every bruise, every punch. He threw it into a push and the two orderlies fell to their knees with cries of anguish._

_Seven took a second to realize he was free._

_He took off down the hall and ran into a soldier. He tried pushing the pain again and he fell to his knees like the orderlies did. He stood there, holding the pain on him. It was the man who liked to hit him, so Seven threw every hit he took into the push and the man let out a strangled yelp._

_‘Good,’ Seven thought._

_Then he felt a sharp needle in his arm, and slowly the push went away, and he fell sleepy._

_He woke up in the room and was alone for days._

_~_

_“So we just want you to listen, okay Seven? Your brother can do this no problem. It’ll be dark, but you’ll be here the whole time. You’ll be safe.”_

_Seven nodded. Six had talked about the black several times. But today was his first time in the tank. He stood, ready to be lowered into the water, and they put the mask over his head. It was playing a steady pulse of static. Inch by inch he was lowered into the cold water._

_“Close your eyes, Seven,” Mother said. “Let yourself float to the man in the picture.”_

_Seven pictured the man, and slowly in the distance the man formed in front of him. He walked towards him, and the closer he got the louder he got. He was speaking Mandarin. Sevenhad learned enough of the language to know he was talking about food._

_He stood there, like he was instructed. He knew the men at the computers could hear it all, so he didn’t have to memorize it. He was distracted by the man’s clothes. The man was wearing some kind of fancy suit, the kind like the men wear that visit him and Six. The kind with stiff buttons and an array of colors on his chest. He wore a hat that told Seven he was soldier. He watched as he stuck out a hand and shook hands with someone. Slowly the person appeared, but then the man let go and he faded back into nothing. He was also wearing a fancy suit, but Seven didn’t see him long enough to identify him later. Mother might be mad about that._

_He’d have to get better at this._

_Then he heard a splash behind him. Something was in the black with him._

_He turned over his shoulder and got a quick glance. The man was gone, and another splash sounded behind him. Whatever it was was circling him, and Seven was too slow to see._

_Then, just as he was sure he’d never see it, there it was running towards him. Seven let out a scared yell and opened his eyes. He was in the tank, kicking furiously and screaming. He was screaming so loud, and so scared, that he watched as the computers sparked around him._

_“Out! I want out!” He screamed. “Please! Mother! Please!”_

_~_

_“Again.”_

_Seven was tired. He’d been doing fight training for years, but never had they pushed he and Six as much as this before. They’d put them on the same mat and make them run drill after drill after drill. Seven would get smacked by Teacher’s cane from time to time. Whenever his form was off, or he held back because he didn’t want to hurt his brother._

_Like now. The end of the drill. Six had him down again. He stood up and got a cane to the arm. It wasn’t fair, Seven was so much smaller._

_“Do not give in.”_

_Seven felt anger and sent a small push of pain towards Teacher. He had learn how to send small doses of emotion, not enough to be noticable, but enough to help him out here and there. A guard with too hard a grip got a push of calm and he’d let up. The lady that brought him lunch had a push of pity and he’d get a second juice. Small little things, emotions that wouldn’t be out of place._

_But sometimes he’d send pain. Just enough that they’d rub a knee or a shoulder. Adults were always feeling bits of pain. A small bit of satisfaction against people that hurt him._

_He never hurt Mother though. He loved Mother._

_Six, though. Six saw through his pushes. Almost like he could feel them. They never affected him though. As hard as Seven tried, Six was immune to him._

_Seven had no such luck._

_They were facing each other again, ready to attack each other as the bell rung. Slowly the room went white and Seven was alone. Six would do this often, cheating to win. Cloud his vision with an illusion that drove Seven mad. He had flurry of blows to the stomach, and once he kneeled down with the breath knocked out of him, Six came around and kicked him hard onto his side, and then again for what felt like no reason. Seven was down._

_The illusion dropped and Seven was treated with the image of Teacher hitting Six across the back with a cane._

_“No cheating!”_

_~_

_“Monsters aren’t real,” Six told him, tearing apart a piece of bread._

_“How do you know?” Seven asked before taking a bite of his rice._

_“Mother said so,” Six said, taking a bite._

_Seven chewed on his rice and thought about that. Mother was right about everything, but he knew what he saw. “Mother is wrong.”_

_“Mother is not wrong!” Six was insistent, throwing down his roll on his plate._

_“I know what I saw!”_

_“Mother is never wrong!” He stood. Seven cowered. “Take it back!”_

_“No!” He stood his ground. He knew what he saw. There was a monster in the black. They weren’t meant to go there._

_“Take it back!” Six shouted as he dove across the table, knocking Seven back and to the floor. They wrestled for a bit, Seven getting in a good blow, before the soldiers were on them, and Six took a needle to the arm and slowly fell asleep._

_~_

_He was going in the tank again. Six had broken his arm in training. He’d have to go into the black in his place. He knew he’d see the monster again, he just knew it. He fought going, the whole way, sending waves of pain in every direction he could push._

_That’s how he accidently hurt Mother. She hit the ground in his bid to get away. He stopped cold, not wanting to hurt her._

_“Mother!” he called out._

_He felt a soldier’s arms around him and the needle go into his arm, but Mother shouted “No!” And the soldier pulled it out. “We need him to go into the tank today. Today or nothing.”_

_She crawled over to him._

_“My sweet Seven,” she soothed his fear. “We need you today. People are counting on you being brave.”_

_“What’s brave?”_

_She let out a soft sigh. “We need to put you in more education classes.” She turned to someone. “Let’s make a note. More vocab.” Someone nodded, but Seven didn’t see who. “Brave is… well,” She rubbed his arms, trying to comfort him. “Brave is doing something scary because you have to.”_

_“I have to?”_

_She nodded. “We need you today. You’ve gotta do it.”_

_He sighed. He went into the tank and sat and listened to a whole table of men in fancy suits talk to each other, staring off into the black the whole time, waiting for something to jump out at him._

_~_

_A while later, Seven was sitting up in his bed, reading a book for school. Six had been in school for years, and Seven had been so jealous. Six got to read! Six got to play with numbers! Seven only had crayons and empty rooms. But now he had books. Books about things like cats having adventures and girls called princesses and the soldiers that save them from dragons. He liked that book. The dragon reminded him of the monster, and the soldier stood up and killed him. It gave him comfort._

_That’s when the lights went out._

_His room locked from the outside, so he could only see out of his tiny window. Soldiers ran past him. Then the lights came on, but in flashes. He watched the hallway, watched as it stayed empty, or soldiers would run by in every which way. One time the scientists in the white coats ran by._

_Then they walked by with Six on a stretcher. He was wet and asleep. He looked hurt and all the adults looked worried. Seven banged on the door. Once, twice, a dozen times, but no one came._

_~_

_“What happened?” Seven asked._

_“Mother was wrong,” Six said, quietly._

_They ate their eggs in silence._

_~_

_It had been weeks since Six or Seven had to go into the tank. They went to School and trained with Teacher, but they didn’t have to go into the tank._

_One day, it was almost like he pushed Six._

_They were at School, and Six was quiet, like he had been since they ran him by on the stretcher. He wanted him to be happier, so he pushed a little bit, not caring it wouldn’t work. Sometimes he pushed without meaning to._

_But all the sudden, Six sat up straight and smiled._

_Seven was so scared at what Six would do if he found out he had pushed him, so he never said anything._

_~_

_“Seven,” Mother started as they went downstairs in the elevator. Downstairs was where the tank was. “We’re going to show you something scary.”_

_“Scary?”_

_“You remember what you’ve got to be when you’re scared?”_

_He nodded. “Brave.”_

_“Good boy.” He liked it when she praised him._

_She led him down the hallway, like they were going to the tank, and he readied himself for going into the black, but then she took a turn to the left. There was a whole panel of computers, and a scientist in a white coat every few feet. Soldiers were standing nearby and, on the other side of a big glass, was the something scary Mother had warned him about._

_He paused, but Mother pulled at his arm. “Come, Seven.” Seven went._

_As he got closer, and could see over the ledge the glass was blocking off, he could see a giant hole in the wall, and out of it, vines were growing thick, and large, and wild. It pulsed and he leaned away from it._

_“We’re going to ask you to go inside, Seven,” Mother said._

_“Inside?”_

_She nodded. “We’ve got men on the other side, and they are scared. We need you to go to them and make them brave.”_

_“I’ve never pushed brave before.”_

_“You’ve got to try, or they’ll die.”_

_He didn’t want to; but he had to._

_They put him in a yellow suit, with a helmet like the one they put on him when he goes in the tank. The suit was crunchy, and was loud when he walked._

_“Now it’s going to look like a city on the other side, Seven,” Mother told him. “Just follow the ropes to the men, okay?”_

_He nodded._

_Sometimes he wished he could push emotions on himself. He was so scared, walking through that hole. He had a rope tied to his waist, they could pull him back, but he had no idea what was on the other side. He’d been outside the lab a few times, but only at night. He loved the stars. They were vast and endless. Wind was nice too. It was warm on his cheeks. He wanted to see what grass felt like, it looked soft but they wouldn’t let him._

_This place… it was dark, but there were no stars in the sky. There was a soft downpour of… ash? Like when a volcano explodes. But there was no wind. The grass was gone, replaced with vines. There were vines of different sizes running over everything._

_He had come out of a wall into a city like out of one of his picture books. He was supposed to follow the ropes, but the three ropes lead in two different directions. He decided to follow the one with two ropes, instead of the single one that lead the other direction._

_He was amazed by all the skyscrapers and cars as he passed them. In the distance he heard a steady crash of something. He turned the corner to see a huge stretch of empty beach and beyond that, an endless dark ocean. He’d never seen the ocean before. He’d seen pictures - he’d drawn pictures - but he’d never seen one before. There was a storm in the distance, and lightning flashed._

_This ocean was terrifying._

_He followed the ropes to a building where the sign said “Restroom” and let himself inside. Inside, there were two men in the same yellow suit he was wearing. They looked frightened, and said nothing to him, staring wide eyed into nothing._

_He had to push brave. He’d never done that before._

_‘You have to do it,’ He thought as he pushed. They both looked up at him, suddenly aware of his presence. He pushed again._

_They stood up._

_“Hey kid,” one of them said. “You’re our rescue party?”_

_Seven nodded._

_He turned and looked at the other guy. “We are fired, for sure.”_

_“That’s fine,” he said. “I quit.”_

_Together, they walked back down the street towards the hole. When they got to where the ropes split, Seven began following it, but the two men called after him._

_“Kid!”_

_“Hey! No. Thompson’s gone, kid.”_

_“Gone?”_

_They nodded. “Something ate him.”_

_Seven cocked his head, confused. What could eat a person?_

_Then he remembered the monster in the black. Was it here? He looked down the way the rope went for a moment. If it was here, they needed to get out of there. He turned to the two men and nodded._

_They started walking down the street towards the hole again, this time faster._

_That’s when wind did pick up, and the ash in the air flew down the street past them in a flurry. Lightning flashed the opposite direction of the ocean. For a brief moment, while the sky was lit up, they could see something giant, something bigger than the buildings, towering over them, watching them._

_“Holy fuck,” one of the men said. Seven didn’t know what that meant, but he agreed._

_“Let’s go, let’s go.”_

_The two men started running, but Seven was scared still. Lightning flashed again, and he got another look at the thing. The hole was a hundred feet away, but the giant was getting closer._

_“Kid!” One of the men yelled. “Come on! We’ve got to move!”_

_That knocked Seven out of it and he ran. Faster than he ever did on the treadmill. They got to the hole just as the giant was towering over them. The two men shoved their way through the hole, but the giant’s head was lowering. Seven, terrified, tried to be brave. He held up his hands and pushed pain towards the thing as hard as he could._

_It seemed to do something, as the giant pulled back and let out a howl and shook it’s massive head. It was enough of a distraction for Seven to shove himself through the hole._

_Once on the other side, there was a flurry of action. The men were rushing and pounding on the glass, ready to be on the other side of safety. Seven took off his helmet and moved to join them when he saw every face on the other side of the glass widen with terror._

_He turned to see the giant’s head even with the hole, and a stream of smoke inching towards the opening._

_Without thinking, Seven held up both hands and pushed everything he had at it. Pain, happiness, frustration, anger, joy, laughter, calm, everything he’d ever learned how to push, he pushed. He felt it scream in confusion and he pushed so hard he started screaming too._

_~_

_He woke up in an empty room on a soft bed. He was alone for a while, before a pretty man came in, saw he was awake, and left with excitement._

_He was alone for a little while longer before a woman with honey blonde hair and a bunch of men in white coats came busting inside the room._

_“Seven,” the woman with honey blonde hair greeted. “How are you feeling?”_

_“Thirsty.”_

_“You’ve been asleep for two days, I’d imagine so.” She reached forward to the table next to him where he was a pitcher. She poured him a glass of water and instructed him to drink it slow._

_“Where am I?” He asked._

_“You’re safe,” she answered. “On the medical floor. You’ve been here before.”_

_“Who are you?” He asked._

_“Who… who am I?” She looked worried. He didn’t want her to worry. “I’m your mother.”_

_“My… mother?”_

_~_

_There were tests. They wanted him to make others laugh, but he didn’t understand how. Everything was new, but everyone expected him to know them, or where he was, or how tests went. This went on for weeks before his mother sat him down and told him she was taking him someplace special._

_She was taking him home._

_That’s where he met his father. He was a kind man who liked ships and showed him how to throw something called a football and taught him how to swim in the-_

_-oh, the ocean! How he loved the ocean! It was so wide and so blue and it smelled so good! He’d spend hours sitting on that back beach. There was so much for him to learn, they said. How to talk to people, how to read better, how to be around other kids his age. It would take time, they said, but he’d get there._

_He was told his name was Steven, but his dad called him Steve. His mother never did. Always Steven. With a hard ‘n’ on the end. He liked being called Steve._

_He had a little sister! And she helped. He could read her books, and help her to ride something called a tricycle, and had things called tea parties with her. His sister was really fun. He could make her laugh by pulling funny faces or tickling her tummy. He asked his mother, once, if that’s what she meant by make people laugh, and she only looked sad before answering yes, of course._

_So he tickled her._

_He had some catch up to do, but by all accounts he was a normal little boy with a normal family who went to a normal school and a normal kung-fu kid’s class and did normal things like swam in the ocean and ride his bike and work on the old car with his father. (That was his favorite thing to do with his dad, by far.)_

_Later, he’d pick up a guitar. He loved playing that thing, learned hundreds of songs. His mother asked him once, why he liked playing it so much. He answered he liked making people feel different things when he played different melodies. She looked at him funny, so he figured she didn’t like him playing an instrument. (He played it anyway.)_

_Then his mother died, and his sister crawled into his bed and cried hysterically._

_A muscle in the back of his mind wiggled, and he patted the back of her head, and she fell asleep almost instantly. The migraine he had the next five days was excruciating, especially since he had it all through the funeral._

_~_

_He dove for Freddie’s waist before he could ring that bell. “Don’t you dare!” He shouted. No way Freddie could give up now, they were so close to being SEALs. They wrestled on the ground for a long moment._

_“I’m not cut out for this, Steve!”_

_“Yes you are! You’ve just got to stick it out!”_

_Then Joe White walked up on them, and sent them crawling the long way home, and Steve told his friend a story about his friend’s father and a muscle in the back of his mind wiggled. Something went through him about making his friend feel strong and able. He had a migraine for the rest of hell week._

_~_

_“Come on Danno,” he said with a grin. Something old and dusty brushed off some cobwebs in his brain. “We doin’ this or not?”_

_“Just,” Danny said, hands flailing. “Are you sure you want to do this? It changes…”_

_“Not a thing,” he finished for him._

_“Everything,” Danny countered with a frown._

_“Kiss me,” Steve said. Danny’s eyes flashed down to his mouth and he couldn’t help the grin that came out of him._

_“Give me a moment. This is a big deal. It’s gonna happen, oh my god, it’s going to happen. We’ve been walking towards this for awhile. This is happening.”_

_“Yes it is. Kiss me.”_

_“I want to savor this,” Danny said, hands on either side of Steve’s face._

_Steve’s fingers curled into Danny’s shirt at his waist. “Kiss me.”_

_And his brain wiggled a little, ‘I dare you,’ He thought._

_Danny rushed forward and kissed him, and with that they fell into something new together. Of course, the bloody nose stalled that first evening, and the headache he had all night didn’t help things either. But Danny said he was thankful for it; it gave him a moment to breathe and savor the moment._

_Steve couldn’t blame him. It was a good moment._


	9. Chapter Eight

Danny  
~  
Danny woke with a start. He was drowsy and fuzzy, but he knew he had been drugged. He was in his bedroom and Steve was there with him, passed out and lightly snoring, but he had been drugged. The memories of the night before flashed through him. Breaking into the lab, Steve’s mother showing up alive, Steve-

-Steve had super powers. 

He stared at his boyfriend for a moment while he slept. 

His boyfriend was a secret government experiment and he had super powers and holy shit Danny’s life was now a comic book.

He shook Steve awake, too many questions running through his mind to let him sleep. 

“Steve. Steve!”

Steve rocked against him. He watched as his eyebrows met, and then he rolled over, embracing Danny, and rubbing his face into his chest. “Let’s go back to sleep, Danno,” He said.

Danny felt a wave of exhaustion float over him before he realized, “Wait! No! Steve! Stop that!”

“Stop what?” He rubbed his nose on his chest once, and then pulled back to look at him.

“Making me sleepy!”

“How could I-” Then he stopped. Realization floating over his face. Then he pulled back, like he was hurting Danny. “I’m so sorry!” 

“It’s okay, just don’t do it to me without me asking, okay?” 

“I’ll try.”

“Okay. I mean, it’d come in handy on those insomnia nights, ya know?” 

Steve sat back and rubbed at his eyes. “Were we drugged?” 

“I think so, whatever we saw-”

“Shh!” Steve said, sitting up quickly. “Stop talking.” 

“Why?” 

Steve pointed at his ear, and then circled his finger up in the air. 

They could be listening. Of course.

Steve walked around the bed and grabbed Danny’s hand and led them into the bathroom. From there, he turned on the shower and took off his pants. Danny was quick to the uptake and started undressing too. They got in the shower and could talk in peace.

“Where do we start?” Danny asked.

Steve shook his head. 

“How are you doing?” Danny asked, worried. “You look a little bit like you’re in shock.” 

“I remember everything,” Steve said. “The lab, the experiments, the abuse, Mother… I remember everything.” 

“You can make people fall asleep,” Danny said.

“I can make people do more than that,” Steve said.

“Well, that’s not ominus.” 

“Can I show you?”

“What do you mean?” 

Steve made a face, and then squinted his eyes for half a moment. Suddenly laughter was bubbling up inside Danny. He tried to fight it for a moment, now was not the time for laughter, but he couldn’t help it. Soon he was doubling over with ridiculous laughter. So much his stomach was starting to hurt. And then, in an instant, the bubbles were gone. 

Danny stared at Steve with wonder.

“I can do pretty much any emotion,” Steve said carefully.

How cool. Danny smiled. “Any emotion?” 

Steve nodded. “It’s been awhile, but as long as I know what it feels like… yeah.” 

Lost in it, and with a bit of a grin, Danny couldn’t help it. “Do you love me?” 

Steve blinked, confusion all over his face. “Of course I do.”

“Then show me.” 

Steve smiled slowly, then bit his lip. He put hands on either side of his face and stared deeply into his eyes. Then, like snowfall, Danny started to feel lit. A cocktail of adoration and devotion and forgiveness and trust. It built up inside him and how unlucky he was that he couldn’t do this for Steve. Show him just how much- tell him- let him see- oh!

He rushed forward with wet eyes and hugged Steve tightly around the neck. He let out a satisfied sigh. He hadn’t felt so full in so long. 

Then the snowfall stopped and Danny clung to echoes of it left inside him. He pulled back.

“Amazing.”

Steve smiled softly.

“Come here,” he said, reaching up. Steve leaned down and for a moment they kissed, letting the warm shower fall over them, while Danny recovered from one of the best moments of his life.

They pulled back and Steve rested his head on Danny’s. 

“My mother’s alive,” Steve said.

“I saw that,” Danny answered.

“She’s more than that… she… she was in charge of me,” he answered. “Me and Six.”

“‘Six?’” 

“That man, that made everything disappear? He can make illusions.” 

“Oh. Great. That’s fightable,” he said with sarcasm. 

“Yeah. He’s always been a jerk.”

“So he was Six, and you were…”

Steve pulled back and looked down to his arm, where the faded tattoo sat. “Seven.” He ran a hand over the tattoo. “I always thought the tattoo was from a bad foster home, or - the story I got from my dad was I was a product of human trafficking - the story wasn’t far from truth.” He looked sad for a moment.

“Human trafficking and human experiments are two different things,” Danny said, running hands up and down his arms. “Do you remember… what they did to make you able to…”

Steve shook his head. “I always could.”

“But you lost it, right? Or have you been keeping something from me?” 

“No, I don’t keep things from you.”

Danny smiled, and leaned forward and kissed his chest. Then he leaned back, “So you, what, grew out of your powers? Why are they back?” 

Steve looked off into the distance for a moment. “I closed a portal?” He looked confused for a bit. “There was another… world? I don’t quite understand what I remember. I know I closed it, and forgot everything. I even forgot my name.” 

“You’re remembering now,” Danny said. “So. What do we know. Jerry was right. Human experiments.” 

Steve nodded. “It’s more than that. We can… go to this place. We called it the black. The inbetween. A space that’s not space. I hated it there.”

He looked so shaken, and it’s not a look he wore often. Danny didn’t like it, and suddenly all the blame and hatred was on his mother. Doris; if that was even her name.

“I don’t know,” He shook his head and lowered his gaze.

“Okay, okay,” Danny said. “I say we tell the team.” Steve looked up at him. “We’ve got a missing boy from the lab. A kid, like you, out who knows where. In danger from these people. They are probably the ones who shot Kamekona.” 

“How are you even thinking straight?” 

Danny grinned. Now was not the time for a gay joke. “I’m not the one that just remembered I was a product of a government experiment and my mother was the mad scientist behind it.”

Steve let out a sad chuckle. “True.”

“So we tell the team?”

Steve bit his lip. “We tell the team.” He looked nervous.

“Hey,” Danny said, trying to find his eyeline. “Hey. I’m with you, okay? We’re in this together.”

Steve nodded. “I love you,” he said.

Danny smiled. “I know.”

~~~

 

Chin  
~  
Chin and Abby spent most of the night wandering around the woods looking for another opening. Chin was so sure that Sara was only a… doorway? A rabbit hole? A portal? ...something away from safety. He just had to crawl through it and find her and bring her home.

Abby looked worn out and exhausted, covered in mud. Chin himself was covered in crusty slime from whatever the portal was. The car ride back to his house was quiet. She believed him about the monster, and it seemed like she believed about Sara. But they were both tired and talking just seemed like too much energy. 

She held his hand though. Chin clung to her. They were going to get Sara back, they just didn’t know how.

Then again, he didn’t know what was waiting for him at his house. Two nervous teenagers, and three excitable pre-teens all clamoring and competing to talk first, and one boy he had never seen before, quiet and still on the couch.

“Hold on, hold on,” Chin held up his hands.

“Chin,” Abby started, pointing at something below the hole Chin had axed into the wall. “Why are there bear traps set up in your living room?” Everyone stopped talking. Adam looked like he just realized there was dangerous traps were there.

“It’s an attempt to protect Sara.” 

“They’ll only work if they show up in the Upside Down, and we don’t know how that works,” Will told him.

“‘The Upside Down?’” Chin asked.

The three kids nodded.

“It’s where Sara is,” Grace answered. “We’ve been talking to her.”

“Talki-” Chin was flabbergasted. “How?” 

“Evan,” Grace told him, pointing to the boy on the couch.

“How?” 

“Its true, cuz,” Kono said. “I heard her last night. He can talk to that world.”

The boy - Evan - crossed his arms and tried to look small.

He shared a look with Abby, who only rubbed her face and looked too stressed out.

“It’s real, Abby!” Kono tried. “I promise you-”

“I believe you,” Abby said softly. “I saw the monster last night.” 

Kono looked relieved.

“The Demogorgon,” the three kids said at once.

“The what?” Chin and Abby asked at the same time.

“The Demogorgon,” Billy said again. Then he shrugged. “That’s what we’ve been calling it. We haven’t seen it, but we know it’s after Sara.” 

Chin nodded. “Yeah, yeah I’ve seen it. It can come here. I shot it, even.”

“Is it dead?” Kono asked, excited.

“I don’t think so. It got back to it’s… world- you called it The Upside Down?” 

The kids nodded. Billy kept speaking. “It’s our world, but it’s not. A world of monsters.”

“And Sara’s there all alone,” Abby said, sounding distraught.

Something hit Chin, and he looked towards Kono, “What about Jenna? She’s there with Sara, they could helping each other! They cou-”

“Jenna’s dead,” Kono said, sadly. Adam put a hand on her shoulder in a sign of comfort. “Evan saw her body.”

That’s when Chin turned to the boy. “You can talk to Sara?” 

Evan didn’t move much, arms crossed and guarded. He nodded. 

“Where’d you come from?” Chin asked.

Evan looked to Grace, worried. Grace came over and sat down next to him. “It’s okay. This is Uncle Chin.”

He didn’t look so convinced. 

“Please, Evan. For Sara.” 

Evan bit his lip, but turned to Chin. “We don’t have a lot of time. She looked weak.”

“Who? Sara? Sara looked weak?” Chin asked, worry growing through him like vines.

“The dangerous people, Evan,” Grace guided him.

“There’s people in The Upside Down?” Chin asked.

Evan shook his head. “No. Mother.”

“Your mother? She’s dangerous?” 

Evan bit his lip, and then he nodded.

“Okay. I won’t let her hurt you.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Will said.

Chin looked over his shoulder. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “Evan’s got powers.”

“‘Powers?’” 

Everyone nodded.

“Okay,” Chin shook his head. “Start from the beginning.”

~

That’s how they ended up piling into a couple cars and heading to headquarters, with a phone call to the team to show up now, right now, we’ve got an emergency, screw the early hour.

Everyone had gathered. Lou and Meka looked confused as to why their children were there so early, looking so frazzled, but Chin wanted to wait on Steve and Danny. Who knows how much they’d remember from being brought home, drugged in a bunch of white vans the night before. Who knows what part of the story they’d bring to the table.

But as soon as they walked in, Steve looking a bit nervous, stopped when he saw Evan. Evan gasped.

~~~

 

Steve  
~  
There was the boy from his dream. He was wearing Steve’s old Navy tank, and a pair of way too big swim shorts, but there he was. He looked up at Steve with wide brown eyes and began to smile.

“You,” the boy said.

Steve walked forward and kneeled so he’d be lower than him. “You.”

The boy held out his arm to show off his tattoo. “Eleven,” he said.

Steve held out his. “Seven.” 

Danny let out a small chuckle. He turned over his shoulder. 

“What?” 

Danny bounced his head back and forth. “Seven Eleven.” 

Steve rolled his eyes and turned back to the boy, who looked confused. “Don’t worry about him. He’s trying to be funny.” 

The boy grinned.

“You know Six,” the boy said softly.

Steve nodded. “I used to.”

“I’m scared of him.”

Steve smiled. “He is kind of a jerk, isn’t he?” 

Eleven smiled. Then he nodded. And then he giggled a little. If Steve gave him a bit of nudge of confidence, he’d never tell. 

“So you must be Nahele,” Danny said.

“‘Nahele?’” Eleven asked.

Steve nodded. “The name your mom gave you.” 

Eleven held his arm out again. “Mother calls me Eleven.” 

Steve covered the tattoo lightly. “Not Mother. Your mom. The woman who gave birth to you.” 

Eleven studied Steve’s face for a long, long moment. Steve did not help him find his emotions, but a whole bunch of them floated across his face anyway. Confusion, understanding, fear, anger, more fear, wonder, excitement, fear again. 

Then, “Nahele?” he asked.

Steve nodded. “Nahele.”

Nahele pointed at himself, “Nahele.” Steve nodded. Then Nahele pointed at him.

Steve smiled. “I’m Steve. It’s nice to meet you.” He held out a hand for him to shake. Nahele looked down at it confused. Oh, how Steve remembered those days. “You grab hands, and you bounce them up and down.” Nahele slowly grasped it and Steve bounced their hands up and down and Nahele smiled widely. 

“Nahele,” he said again, getting used to his own name.

“You mean like Mia Huikala’s son?” Jerry asked.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Lou asked, crossing his arms. Steve stood up to face it. Coming clean with a truth he had only just remembered the night before.

“They were doing human experiments, weren’t they?” Jerry asked.

Nahele moved to stand behind Steve and Steve was fine to let him. “Yes, but we’re not going to spread that around just yet. If ever. Got it?” 

Jerry went wide eyed, and then nodded. “Got it boss.” 

Steve looked around at the mess of people before him. This was his family. If anyone was going to understand, it was them. He opened his mouth to speak when-

“Oh good, you’re all here. I thought I was the only one that started the day early.” Max walked in the door, and marched right up to the group. 

“Hello, Max,” Steve said, moment passed. “What’s going on? We’re kind of in the middle of something.” 

“It has to do with Sara’s body.” 

“It’s not Sara’s body,” Chin and Kono said at the same time. Steve watched as they shared a grin.

“No,” Max said. “It is not.” 

“What?” Several people asked at once. 

“How do you know?” Steve asked. 

“I went to prepare her body for transfer to the funeral home. I noticed the body did not have any rigamortis. Curious, I made a slight incision to start an autopsy when I realized the body was purely a prosthetic filled with ballistic jelly. A lifelike dummy, to be sure, but a dummy all the same.” 

“So where’s Sara?” Lou asked.

“The Upside Down,” all the kids answered.

“The what?”

Immediately Steve was taken back to the time he walked through the portal, to a world like this one, but not. Everything gray and dark and ash falling from a void sky. He covered his mouth. If Sara was there…

He turned to Nahele, “Is the portal open again?” 

Nahele looked pained, he took a few small steps away from the group. He looked like he was about jolt.

“Hey, hey, you aren’t in trouble.”

“They’ll catch me and put me in the room,” he said, scared.

“Hey,” Steve said as soft as he could, fighting the urge to push some comfort his way. He was suddenly very conscious how making someone feel something they wouldn’t naturally feel could be insidious. “Hey, they will never put you in the room again. I promise.”

“Promise? What’s promise?” 

“It’s… it’s a statement you try not to break. As long as I’m up and fighting, they will not put you back in that room.” 

Nahele nodded, a little more confident. 

“Is the portal open again?” 

Nahele bit his lip. “Six made me do it.” 

“Six?” Steve asked. “Why?”

“He couldn’t. He tried, but he couldn’t. Not since the last time.”

“So Six opened it last time,” Steve said. Nahele nodded. “And you opened it this time?” 

“Six made me!” he insisted. 

“I believe you.” Steve put a hand on his face, cupping it in a comforting squeeze.

“So you opened the portals and let that thing, that monster, loose in our world?” Will accused. “Let it go after Sara?” 

“Six made me!” Nahele said, hiding behind Steve again.

“This is all your fault!” Will said.

Grace held him back. “Will, stop!” 

Steve held up a hand. “It’s more complicated than that.” 

“But!”

“But nothing!” Steve shot back. “It’s not as simple as you want it to be.” He took a beat, and fought the urge to push everyone to be calm. “Now you said monster. Which monster?” 

“‘Which?’” Several people said at once. 

“There’s more than one?” Kono asked.

Steve nodded. “There’s a human sized one… it’s mouth kinda…” He mimicked it with his hands, “...opens up. Then there’s the giant.” 

“Giant?” Several people asked, including Nahele.

“Okay,” Lou said. “I’ve been real patient. What’s going on?” 

~~~

 

Nahele  
~  
Everyone came clean about what they knew. Steve showed off his powers, and how Nahele dreamed of being able to calm people down like that. Nahele showed off his. Adults were convinced.

Nahele… that was his name. From his mom. He knew Mother couldn’t have been his mom. She was Six’s mom, sure, but not his. He came from somewhere else. He had to. Mother was mean, and vicious, and horrible.

But his name was Nahele. It sounded soft as he said in his head. Soft and warm and his. He looked down at the tattoo on his arm as the adults talked about. He was Eleven and Evan and Nahele. And Steve… Steve was like him. Like him and Six; but Steve was nothing like Six. Six was cold and rough and a cruel Teacher. Steve was strong and warm and kind. He liked Steve.

“Okay…” Lou said. “So what’s the giant?”

It had taken a lot to get Lou to believe them all. But one laughing fit from Steve, and one levitating Grace up a few feet in the air from Nahele later, he was pretty much sold. Nahele liked these adults. They were kind and they wanted to protect him, not use him.

“I only saw it for a few minutes,” Steve answered. “But it’s as tall as skyscrapers.”

Nahele cowered at the thought, pushing himself closer to Steve’s side. Steve’s arm came around and hugged him. Other than Mother, it was the first comfort from an adult he’d ever experienced. 

“And you…” Danny started. “...you closed the portal?” 

Steve nodded. “But it made me forget everything. Doing it blocked my powers. I guess it opening back up a few days ago,” he looked down at Nahele. “I guess that freed them up again.”

“So we need a plan,” Chin said. “We gotta get back into that lab. We gotta get to the Upside Down, we gotta get Sara, we gotta close the portal, we gotta-”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Steve said, stopping him. “One thing at a time.”

“We can’t close the portal,” came a voice from the entrance to the room. It was Mother. Nahele jumped and hid directly behind Steve. He started breathing erratically, panicking. Steve put a solid hand on his back, before turning to the voice.

“Mom…” He said in wonder. Then he pulled a gun. Several of the adults all did the same, pulling all the kids behind them.

She held up her hands in surrender. “We can’t close the portal. We need to study it.”

“Doris…” Steve said. “If that’s even your name.”

She sighed. “It’s my name. We’ve been trying to open the portal since you closed it thirty years ago. We never seen anything like it. We need to study it.”

“No,” Steve said. “You don’t know what’s on the other side…”

“Exactly!” she said. “Besides, you don’t have clearance to decide.” 

“Bullshit,” Steve said, full of poison. He was standing up to Mother! Something made Nahele look around Steve to watch her reaction. This was exciting. Steve was so strong! “If that thing got to our world…”

“It won’t,” she rolled her eyes. “It didn’t before.” 

“Because I gave my powers and memory to shut it! It should stay shut!” 

“It’s killing people,” Kono spoke up. 

“I’ve given my life to this, Steven.” 

“And I haven’t?” He shot back. He steadied the gun at her. “My mother killed herself.” 

“I had to make a decision. My life’s work was too important-”

“For what? So important that you gave up your family?” Steve asked. “Granted I was never really your son, was I? I was experiment you wanted to keep an eye on.” 

“I’ll admit, I took you home because you no longer had value to the program, but I wanted to keep you close in case you started remembering. So I could help you with those memories,” She took a few steps closer to him. Several guns re-aimed. She paused in her step. “So I could help you remember.” 

“Remember being a lab rat?”

They were people, Nahele thought. Not rats.

“Remember your importance.”

Steve scoffed. 

“Eleven?” Mother called out. “Please don’t be scared of me.”

Nahele grew angry. That was not his name. She didn’t get to call him that anymore. He leaned out from behind Steve and shouted, “Nahele!” 

She looked frustrated. 

“You’re not getting your hands back on him.”

She held her hands up again. “I’m just concerned for his welfare. He’s been missing for days!”

“He’s fine.”

“He can come home now.” 

“With you and what army?” Danny asked. “No really, where’s your army?” 

“I come in peace!” she said. “I swear!”

“He’s not going anywhere with you. Neither of us are.”

“Now, Steven,” she said. Nahele recognized that tone. That wasn’t a good tone.

Then Steve lowered his gun and took a couple steps forward. “Now, Mother,” he said in a mocking tone. She hit the ground on her knees, letting out a screech of pain. And then she took deep breaths, like it was over. “I said no.” 

“Okay, okay,” she said. This time she looked like she was telling the truth. Nahele looked on at Steve in wonder. He’d never been protected like this before.

“Book her, Danno,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. Mother’s eyes widened. There was an exchange of handcuffs and Danny walked over, pulled Mother off her knees, and began putting her in cuffs. 

“On what charge? I’m here to help!” 

“How about child endangerment?” 

Mother scoffed. “I took you in as my own. I am your mother!”

Steve said nothing, but stood strong. Nahele gave her a cold look. She never took him in as her own. He was a tool to her, nothing more. Watching Danny take her away in handcuffs was amazing. He pulled her into another room with glass walls. She wasn’t a threat. All his worrying for nothing. These people knew what to do. He should have listened to Grace in the first place.

~~~

 

Steve  
~  
They had half a plan. A big part of it required something Steve didn’t really want to do. They needed to be able to get back into Crater Labs, and past Six. That meant forcing Doris to comply. Which meant talking to her again. 

Sitting locked up in Danny’s office, she looked so put together. He wanted to storm in there and let her have it. For now, the priority was Sara.

“I’m going in, obviously,” Chin said. “She’s my niece. But how will I know how to find her?”

This lead to where they were now. Steve and Nahele were sitting in the comfortable chairs in his office, turning static up as high as they could surrounded by everyone. This was all Nahele needed, Steve doubted he’d be able to follow him.

“I’ve never done this without the tank,” Steve told him. 

Nahele took his hand. “Just follow me.”

Steve nodded and watched him close his eyes and followed suit. It took a moment, but Steve calmed himself; he focused on the static and on Nahele’s grip on his hand.

Then he found himself standing in an inch of water, Nahele holding on to his hand, in an endless void of black. He looked down at Nahele. 

He smiled. “Now what?” 

“Think of Sara,” Nahele told him.

Just then, in the distance, there was a porch and a front door. Steve recognized it as Chin’s house. Nahele started walking towards it, pulling Steve along after him. As they got closer, Steve saw a bundle curled up under the porch; Sara, asleep under a blanket.

“She’s weak,” Nahele said.

Steve bit his lip and kneeled down. He reached out to try to wake her. His hand only floated through her. He could see her, but not touch her. They couldn’t tell her to stay put, or go somewhere to wait on Chin if they couldn’t wake her.

Then the vines that were all around the porch jerked forward and curled around her ankles. 

“No!” Steve said, uselessly reaching to pull them off her. “She’s running out of time.” He turned to look at Nahele only to see Six standing behind him with a grin on his face. 

Steve reacted fast. He reached for Nahele, pulling him around and behind him, just as Chin’s front porch faded into the black. Nahele’s grip on his arm was strong.

“Mother better be okay,” Six said.

“She’s alive,” Steve answered.

Six’s face lit up, “So you remember now. You remember me?” 

Steve nodded.

“Good. It’s time to come home.”

Steve scoffed. They really thought he’d go back to being an experiment quietly, and without a fight.

“It’s futile to resist,” Six said.

“We’ll see about that,” Steve replied.

That’s when he heard a splash in the water. He had heard it before, and Nahele whimpered behind him. He turned, Chin’s porch appearing again. This time, the Demogorgon was coming from around the corner, sniffing. It walked right past Sara, so it either didn’t notice her, or she was…

Steve turned to Nahele, “Get out of here.” In a blink, Nahele and his grip on Steve’s arm was gone.

Six stepped forward, studying it. 

“Stop!” Steve told him.

Six waved him off and got closer. The Demogorgon seemed to notice him and they all stilled. Steve watched as the Demogorgon leaped forward just as Six vanished. Then it turned its sights on Steve and-

-and Steve opened his eyes to his office, breathing heavy.

His eyes found Chin, “We’ve got to go now. She doesn’t have long.”

“Where is she?” 

“Your house,” He said as he stood up. He stared through the glass to where Doris sat, watching them. He really didn’t want to do this, but they needed her.


	10. Chapter Nine

Danny  
~  
It was decided that all the kids were to stay at Chin’s house while they went after Sara. How they came to that conclusion, Danny wasn’t sure, but upon arrival he could see why. Chin and Kono had amassed a small arsenal of weapons; bats, fishing spears, an axe, some golf clubs. Not to mention the traps they had set up under points in the wall where Chin had said the Demogorgon had tried to get through.

Meka and Lou were chosen to stay behind, but everyone else was going to the labs to face down the Lab’s forces, Steve’s brother, the Upside Down and the monsters within. 

“You stay here,” Steve told Nahele. “You’re safer here.”

“I can help,” Nahele said.

“You’ve helped enough. You’ve been so brave.”

Nahele looked confused. “What’s brave?”

Danny stood as Steve kneeled in front of the boy again. “I used to think it was doing something scary because you had to. But-” And Steve took the boy’s hands in his. “-now I think it’s doing something scary because someone is counting on you to do it.” 

“I’m selfish.” Nahele looked ashamed.

“Sometimes the person counting on us is ourselves.”

Danny had to admit that the two had an instant, intense connection. He knew that if Steve had his way, Nahele wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon. 

“You’ve been brave enough these last few days. It’s my turn.” Steve smiled, then stood to embrace him. 

Danny smiled and turned to his own kid. Grace was smiling watching them too. Danny nudged her a little. “Hey Monkey,” he said.

“Hey Danno,” she replied, not looking up.

“You did good taking care of him,” he told her. “You should have come to us much sooner, but you did good.”

She smiled up at him. He reached out to pull her into a hug and she let herself be pulled in willingly. She rubbed her face against his chest. “I love you daddy,” she said softly.

He kissed the top of her head. “I love you too.”

“Hey,” Steve said. “Give me some of that.” 

They opened their arms to him, and he dove in, circling his arms around both of them, pulling them into a deep hug. Then they pulled back and Steve focused on Grace, putting hands on either side of her face.

“I love you, kiddo,” he told her. Danny’s stomach dropped at the realization of what was happening; Steve was saying goodbye. Just in case.

“I love you too,” she replied. Then he kissed her forehead and stood up with a look of determination on his face.

~

The car ride was tense with Doris in the backseat.

“You get what you’re supposed to do, Doris?” Steve asked the rearview mirror.

“I’m telling you, we can’t shut it!”

“And I’m telling you, we have to!” Steve sighed. “It’s a wonder the giant hasn’t come through already.”

“Our scouts haven’t seen anything resembling a giant,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You just aren’t remembering correctly.”

“I remember just fine!”

Danny looked back and forth between them. Doris wasn’t winning any brownie points in Danny’s book, but there had been more than one conversation where Steve expressed a desire to talk to her one last time. Though, he supposed, everything that happened changed that.

“That’s another thing,” Danny said. “Last time you shut the portal…”

“I lost my memories, yeah.” 

“Another reason to leave it open!” Doris chimed in. 

“Shut up,” Steve deadpanned. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Danny didn’t want to agree with Doris but… he didn’t want to lose Steve either. He had said goodbye to Grace. Steve reached across the console and gripped Danny’s hand in his. Danny squeezed back and recalled earlier this morning in the shower, when he shared just how much he loved Danny. 

Or… there was that snowfall again. Danny looked up from their joined hands to Steve’s profile. He ran a thumb over Steve’s fingers. He wasn’t going to lose him. Danny would stick it out until they found their way back to each other. He lifted Steve’s hand and kissed his knuckles as the snowfall dissipated. 

~

Doris waved them into the Labs, waved them through the first floor to the elevator, and swiped her security clearance card. Steve’s grip on her arm was unwavering as Danny, Chin, and Abby followed them through the building.

The elevator doors opened on the bottom floor and they were greeted with Six and two dozen men. Danny reached for his gun, but as soon as he did his vision went white again. He could hear everyone - Chin and Abby reacted loudly as they hadn’t experienced this before.

Danny had a tight grip on his glock.

“Drop the illusion,” he heard Steve say. 

“Why should I?” 

Danny then heard Doris give out another yelp. Steve had made her feel pain; that was a terrifying side of Steve’s powers. But she didn’t yelp for long, Steve was not sadistic enough to hold it for long, even if he wanted to.

“Fine,” he heard Six say and the white cloud faded away. “Mother?” 

“I’m fine,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I’m fine. Just do what we talked about.”

The soldiers all lowered their guns and stood back relaxed. Danny’s grip remained firm. A quick glance and Chin and Abby also had their guns in their hands, Chin had brought along his shotgun. 

“We prepared a suit for Officer Kelly to go in after his niece,” Doris said. “That was part of why I came to you this morning.”

“Sure,” Steve said. 

“So the fake body, let me ask you,” Danny started. “Were you really going to let a little girl die if we hadn’t figured this out?” 

“We assumed she was already dead.”

Steve scoffed. Danny was disgusted.

“She’s a little girl!” Chin spoke up. “And a lot stronger than you were expecting.” 

Doris said nothing.

“So,” Six ignored them and turned to Chin. “Are we ready for our excursion?”

“You’re going?” Steve asked. “No way.”

“Why not?” Doris asked. 

“I don’t trust him, that’s why. I don’t trust any of you.” 

Danny grinned, his heart soared; that’s his boy.

“Chin and I are going in after Sara,” Steve said firmly. “Then we are coming back and I am closing that portal once and for all.” He pointed down the hallway.

Doris stood her ground, “We cannot close it. Its opportunity for scientific advancement is too great-”

“It’s a security threat. My job on this island is to neutralize security threats. We’re closing it.” Steve stood up straight and took a deep breath. “I’m closing it.” 

Six looked towards Doris, and the two dozen or so men all waited on her order. This was a dangerous game of you-blink-first and Steve wasn’t one to back down. Whatever it was that Steve saw as a child had scared him this much.

“We have it contained,” Doris argued.

“No, you don’t,” Steve shook his head. “A teenage girl is dead because of this. Another child is missing. There’s a monster roaming around the woods. And that’s just what we know. You don’t have it contained. It can’t be contained. These two worlds were never meant to collide! I’m closing it.” 

Doris looked away, obviously frustrated. “We’re all going in. As well as a small team to get some final readings, then.” 

“Fine,” Steve agreed.

That’s how they piled below the staging glass and stepped into a dozen hazmat suits. Danny didn’t like what it meant that Sara was alone in this place without one. What kind of tests had they run? What had they found out about this place? What weren’t they telling them?

“Hey,” Danny pulled on Steve’s arm, pulling him aside. There wasn’t much privacy, but the few feet away from everyone was something. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” 

Steve shrugged. He was looking down, focusing on fastening his belt. “First priority is Sara. Everything else will just have to happen as it happens.”

“Do you really think they’ll let you close the portal?” 

He didn’t say anything and turned to focus on the elastic on Danny’s sleeve. 

“Steve…” 

“I have to try.” 

“And,” Danny paused, the question caught in his throat, “if you succeed? Last time… Last time you lost your memory.” 

Steve bit his lip, and then he laid Danny’s not yet gloved hand flat in his and ran his knuckles over his palm. “Yeah. I have to try, Danny.” He looked up and finally met Danny in the eye. 

The snowfall started falling inside him and Danny couldn’t help but smile. He reached forward, pulling Steve down into his arms and held on, all while Steve’s feelings floated through him.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Steve said at a whisper, “but just know that I love you.” 

“I love you too,” Danny said, squeezing tighter. “And no matter what happens I’m not letting you go. Not without a fight.” 

Steve let out a half wet chuckle. He pulled back and Danny got a second wave of Steve’s feelings as Steve pushed forward for a kiss. They stood there, away from the others, and took each other in. Everything had gotten so strange so fast that Danny had just been along for the ride. But in that moment Danny showed up. The love of his life had super powers, so be it. 

~~~

 

 

Kono  
~  
This staying at home thing was bullshit. 

Just because she was technically a minor didn’t mean she couldn’t handle herself. She’d faced down the monster before. She wasn’t just going to sit idly by and let the adults do all the work.

That’s why she had texted Sam. She was crowded in the back of Lou’s SUV with a bunch of kids who were also protesting their banishment and she had an idea. A short, quiet few texts back and forth with Adam sitting next to her, and they had a plan. One Uncle Lou and Uncle Meka weren’t going to like very well, but one they were going to have to deal with.

They were being watched closely by the two men, but that’s where Sam came in. Sam who, albeit, wasn’t as itchy for a fight as Kono was, but she was involved. Kono knew her friend; Sam would be upset she’d missed so much already.

Grace, too, wasn’t one to sit out a fight. She was complaining and arguing the whole time, and had only agreed to exile when reminded part of it was to keep Nahele safe. She was too smart for her own good, and wise well beyond her years. When Kono and Adam had talked Lou into going and getting them all breakfast, Grace caught on quick. She didn’t know why Kono wanted Lou out of the house, just that she did and goaded him on. 

“Did you know Nahele’s only eaten poptarts all week?” she asked. “It’s a shame. I don’t know if they guy’s ever had a donut before.” And that was that. Kono was impressed.

So when Sam showed up two minutes after Lou left, bringing the box Kono told her to bring, all the had left to deal with was Meka.

Meka has always been the chill one.

“Hey Uncle Meka!” Sam greeted, handing the box off to Adam. “Kono caught me up on everything.”

“Everything?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Well, maybe not everything, but that’s why I’m here. All the gossip.” She turned to look at Nahele. “Who are you?” 

Grace, bless her, caught on so fast that she grabbed Nahele’s hand, and then Sam’s hand and gleefully shouted, “I guess we’ll catch you up in Kono’s room!” 

And Meka, either out of exhaustion of learning everything or just choosing to, let them go without argument. Will, Billy, and Adam kind of stood still, staring at each other before Kono made “come on you idiots” faces at them. One by one they got up and marched down the hall. 

Grace was ready for her at her doorway. “Okay, what’s going on?” 

Kono grinned. “The adults have it all planned, but left out one detail.” She pushed into her now very crowded room.

“What detail?” Will asked. Apparently Grace wasn’t the only one quick on the uptake.

“You guys called it the Demogorgon?” 

“They have guns,” Billy said. “Uncle Chin said he shot it! What can we do?” 

“Yeah well, they need to focus on finding Sara,” Kono said. Then she turned to Adam holding the box. “Does this thing really do what you say it does?” 

“It’s basically a giant energy bulb. You said Sara said the thing was attracted to the lights? Let’s give it a light show.” 

“What are we doing?” Sam asked. “We’re going to bring that thing here?” 

“The goal is to get it out of the Upside Down so they can focus on finding Sara and getting her out of there,” Kono said. “Who knows if this’ll work or not.” 

“Hey,” Adam boasted. “This thing won me the science fair.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam rolled her eyes.

That’s when Kono noticed Grace trying to comfort Nahele. The poor boy looked terrified. 

“Hey,” Kono started. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But it’s just long enough for them to get Sara.” 

“You’ve seen it,” Nahele said, drawing in on himself. 

Kono nodded. “We’ve got to be brave.”

She watched as Nahele practically transformed in front of her. He went from cowering in the corner to a serious face and determination on his shoulders. “For Sara.” 

“For Sara,” Grace said with a nod.

Kono held her hand out in the middle of them, and waited for the rest of them to place their hands in too. “For Sara,” she repeated. 

Everyone joined in a circle and placed their hands on each other’s hands. They turned to look at Nahele, who looked confused, but joined in anyway. They bounced their hands once and everyone said “for Sara” again. 

She didn’t know it, but Sara had an army fighting for her.

“My dad’s gonna flip,” Billy laughed as they dropped their hands.

“Your dad?” Will scoffed back. “What about when my dad comes back and we’re all armed with golf clubs?” 

“At least the dads have real weapons,” Grace said.

“We’ve got Obi Wan,” Adam said with a grin towards Nahele. “What could go wrong?”

~~~

 

Steve  
~  
“We need someone to stay on this side of the portal,” Danny said. He turned to Steve, “you stay with Doris and the scientists at the portal. I’ll go with Chin and find Sara.” 

“Hell no,” Steve argued. 

“We need the superhero watching the super villain,” Danny said, pointing over his shoulder at Six. “I don’t trust any of these people, but I trust you.” 

Danny had a point. Steve eyed Six, who was monitoring the scientists moving equipment to take with them. Apparently they had already set up a monitoring station just inside the portal, but had plans for doing some other tests. Tests Steve also wanted to keep an eye on. The last thing they needed was to do something that caught the attention of the giant. 

“I guess that means I’ll stay on this side of the portal while you boys go have all the fun,” Abby sighed. She gripped Chin’s hand. “Be your eyes and ears here on Earth.” 

Chin leaned over and kissed her.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” she told him.

“I don’t blame you,” Chin grinned. Then he nodded and turned serious, focused on the mission ahead. “Let’s go.” 

Steve and Danny shared their own kiss. Danny was right, he could lose his memory all over again. The difference was this time he had Danny, and he was certain he’d find his way back to Danny. Danny wouldn’t give up on him. 

Cupping Danny’s face, Steve smiled softly. Danny reached up and covered Steve’s hand with his own. They all shared one final look before putting on their helmets and one by one dove into the portal.

~

The ash was just as Steve remembered it. Floating down softly, covering everything, not a breeze in the air. The vines were covering everything, growing down the streets and over cars and buildings. Steve wondered how the cars were there, as cars moved all the time on Earth. There was so much about this place they didn’t understand; a big part he was sure they were never supposed to understand.

He watched as the scientists dissected part of the vines and placed bits and pieces in specimen jars and boxes. They collected ash from the air. They had panels of equipment reading things Steve didn’t really care about. A team of three had journeyed down the thoroughfare towards where the ocean would be carrying more specimen jars and cases; probably to gather the strange otherworldly ocean water and sand. 

Doris was doing a fantastic job of delegating and ording everyone around. They all jumped to her order like they were afraid of her, just like Steve remembered. His memory came in bits and pieces and then all at once. There was a new discovery around every corner just waiting for him to show up. The portal pulsed somewhere behind him, reminding him that losing those memories again - and all the memories that came after - was a very real possibility. 

He could forget Danny and the kids. 

He tried not to focus on that. Instead, he focused on the hustle and bustle of the men and women around him. Everyone seemed to have a job except for Six. Six was standing, arms crossed, staring off inland. Steve made his way over to him.

“Do you even know your real name?” Steve asked him.

Six did not turn around. “I was told it was Wo Fat. I much prefer what Mother called me as a child.” 

Steve nodded. That figures. He had the loyalty of anyone with Stockholm Syndrome. They probably put him in the field as he got older, he was so well dressed and well spoken. Nothing at all like the stunted speech they both suffered from as children, that Nahele has now. Though, he supposed he and Six had it better off; they had each other.

“She’s not your mother,” Steve said.

“She’s not yours either,” Six shot back. “Even if she did take you home. Like a stray dog.” 

That stung. He had half a thought about how much his father knew, but hadn’t let himself explore it just yet. He supposed he could ask Doris, but now was not the time for that.

“We were on the same mission once,” Six said. “It was a joint task force. We were a small army, and put together for only a few hours, but I looked right at you and you didn’t know who I was.” 

“When was this?” Steve asked, racking his brain.

“2005, Malaysia. You were there for an arms trafficker. I was there for… something else.” 

Steve remembered. They stormed a whole building. They were a force of a dozen men from agencies all over the world and Steve never thought about it again. He was just a grunt at the time. Knowing they were separated and still grew up to do the same work sent shivers up Steve’s spine, like he was always meant to do some of the things he did. 

“We could have worked together all this time,” Six said, still looking off into the distance. Far away lightning flashed, lighting up the silhouette of the mountain range. It must have been lonely for him after Steve was gone. “The things we could have done.” 

“You could have been free this whole time,” Steve countered. “You could have been a normal person.” 

“Nothing about us is normal,” Six said, turning to look at Steve. “We are not meant to be among them any more than we are meant to be in this place.” He motioned around to their surroundings. They were just inside the portal, waiting on Chin and Danny, watching the scientists work. The iconic Hard Rock sign was just up the street, the ocean only a corner away, and everything familiar but everything wrong.

“That’s not true,” Steve said. “After this is over, I can show you…”

He turned away again. “They aren’t going to let any of this go.”

“Too many people know now. People that would be investigated if we go missing. Doris’ world is over. Crater Labs is over.”

“You’re wrong,” Six said sternly. “Mother will rebuild. I will help her.” 

“I can help you to be free of her, if you want,” Steve promised. “Even after… all that… we shared that place for a while. You’re still my brother.”

Six turned only his head slowly, over his shoulder and back to look at Steve. They shared a heavy look for a few moments. Steve was sure he had gotten through to him.

“Your sentiment is touching, but unneeded,” Six finally said. Steve didn’t believe him.

“You want freedom,” Steve said. “I can tell it.”

“Freedom is a child’s dream,” Six said.

“I can help you. I will help you.” 

Six said nothing for a few moments before his eyes shifted towards Doris, ordering scientists around. “And Mother?” 

“What about her?” 

“Will you try to kill her?” 

What a loaded question. Steve felt so much anger towards her after learning the truth that the thought of dropping her off the edge of a volcano had crossed his mind. 

“She’s still my mother,” Steve finally said. “I have questions for her. Questions only she can answer. So no. I won’t kill her.” 

Six nodded slowly. “Maybe… brother.” 

“Good.” Steve grinned. He had him, he could help his brother find freedom again. That he could do. “Besides,” Steve said, “if I lose my memories doing this again, you’ve got part of my history.” 

Six grinned. “I didn’t get to say goodbye last time.” He took a few steps towards Steve and held out a hand, “so just in case.” 

Steve smiled sadly before reaching forward and grasping his brother’s hand.

That’s when lightning flashed again, and out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw the gigantic shape of the giant peeking up over the distant mountain range. He felt more than saw Six follow his eyeline and they both tightened their grip on each other.

~~~

 

Grace  
~  
Adam called it a Tesla Coil. It was about the size of a table lamp and took him about twenty minutes to put together. 

“We can’t be in the room while it’s on, it’s too dangerous,” Adam said, pulling a control panel out of the box Sam brought. “Are we sure we want to do this?” 

Kono sighed. “Yes, for the last time.” 

“No, no,” Sam said. “He’s right. That thing is fast and dangerous.” 

“Dad’s back,” Will said from Kono’s window. “It’s now or never.” 

Grace had to admit that not telling Uncle Lou and Uncle Meka was a bit stupid, but they wouldn’t agree to it. No way, not with all of them there. But there was strength in numbers, and the adults knew how to use guns.

“Let’s do this,” Grace said, gripping her chosen weapon. Kono got the axe, but Grace got the bat. Adam and Sam got the fishing spears, but the rest of them were equipped with golf clubs.

“Breakfast!” They heard Lou shout from the living room.

“Let’s move,” Adam said, pulling the wire toward the door. They all spilled out of Kono’s room, ready for a fight, while Adam shut the door, the wire running under it.

“What’s going on?” Meka asked as he saw all the kids fall into a loose formation around the living room. It looked like Meka had been cleaning up the best he could while the kids did their work. 

“What’s with the pitchforks?” Lou asked, bags of food in his hands.

Grace watched as Kono nodded towards Adam and Adam switched on the coil. There was a whirring sound from the other side of the door, and the lights in the house all dimmed. 

“Kids?” Lou asked.

Grace turned to him saying, “We have to try.” 

“Try what?” Meka asked.

“To distract the Demogorgon,” Billy answered. “So they can get Sara.” 

Lou sat down the food on the table and pointed towards the door. “And what exactly is in Kono’s room?” 

“Hopefully? The distraction,” Kono said.

They all took a deep breath as the dads shared a look before reaching for their guns.

“This is a stupid idea,” Meka said. 

“Got that right, brother,” Lou responded. 

Grace grinned. They would never let it happen, but it was happening now anyway. She watched as they crowded the kids behind them and against the wall. Grace had her own golf club, a putter of all things, when she noticed Will looking down and breathing heavy. With a moment of her own bravery, she reached forward and grasped Will’s hand. He reacted quickly, first looking down at her hand, and then up at her. He looked confused for a moment, glancing at Nahele and then back at her as if to ask, ‘what about him?’

Grace fought the urge to roll her eyes; boys could be so stupid. She tightened her grip on his hand. She watched as he grinned and his confidence grew. 

“Three,” Adam counted.

Will dropped her hand and together they re-gripped their clubs. 

She glanced over at Nahele and she couldn’t quite read him.

“Two.”

“This is so stupid,” Uncle Lou said. 

“Come on, dad,” Sam said with a grin. “It’s just a walk in the park.” 

“Oh, haha,” Lou responded.

They all stared down Kono’s bedroom door, the dads standing guard in front of them the best they could, all ready and waiting. 

“One.” 

~~~

 

Chin  
~  
“You didn’t have to come with me,” Chin said as they quickly walked towards where Chin’s home should be. They tried jogging, but were both worried about attracting any predator eyes. They were in bright yellow uniforms as it was, a glaring clash in the ashy world. A once vibrant and colorful Honolulu was dull and gray. This place was identical to home, down to the same dents in the road signs and cracks in the pavement. Chin knew his island like the back of his hand, but knowing that there was this… shadow world, just out of their reach… 

...he really wasn’t trying to focus on it. Instead focused on trying not to trip on vines that covered every inch of this world.

“Of course I did,” Danny said. 

“Well,” Chin said, knowing that he’d do the same for Grace, and that Danny knew that too. “Thank you.” 

“I’m in your corner, buddy,” Danny responded. Chin was thankful, but again he pushed the feeling aside to focus on later. Sara was counting on them. 

“You know,” Danny spoke as they kept walking. “I want to know how the grass gets cut and the palm trees get trimmed.” 

“What?” Chin asked absently, used to Danny’s rambling. It was a comfort, even now in the home stretch.

“Does the Demo...gorgeous do yard work?” 

“What?” 

“There’s no one in this world. How does the grass get cut?” He motioned down towards one of yards. Sure, it was covered in vines, and the color was drained, but it was a finely manicured lawn.

“I don’t know,” Chin groaned. “Fairies? Old Gods? Magic of Hogwarts?” 

Danny chuckled. 

“I’m sure Jerry would have some theories.” 

“Oh, Jerry would love this place.”

As they turned down the road towards his home - the last place Steve and Nahele said they saw her - they noticed random flashes of light. They both simultaneously sped up into a job, and then to a run. No point in remaining unremarkable now.

Like all things that had happened in the last week, the flashes of light only brought up more questions. Why was Chin’s house lighting up and no one else’s? How come it seemed like the whole island was without electricity except for Chin’s seemingly unremarkable home?

Questions, Chin was sure, they’d never have answers to.

As they got closer to the house, they saw Sara on the porch, but not looking at them. Who knows how many times she had been face to face with the thing, but Chin’s heart stopped when he saw what the kids were talking about. The Demogorgon. It was sniffing around the porch, and Sara was backing up slowly. She let herself through the front door of the house - they were close enough now that Chin could see that the door had been knocked down and out of frame. 

The Demogorgon was obviously following her scent and started making its way up the front steps.

“Hey!” Chin called out in instinct. It took a moment for him to realize that Danny was yelling out after it too. He was lucky to have such good men as friends.

The Demogorgon swiveled in its path and Chin and Danny paused in theirs. Let it chase them. Chin lifted his shotgun and pointed it up into the air. He fired it once, hoping to run the thing off, and it almost worked.

That’s when a scream ran out from inside the house - Sara - and the monster made its retreat into the house.

Danny and Chin were after it.

~~~

 

 

Nahele  
~  
Whatever it was that Adam had built wasn’t working. They had geared up for a fight, crowded and ready, but Adam switched the machine on and…

...they waited. And waited. And several minutes passed without any activity. 

“We sure this was going to work?” The man named Lou asked. 

Sam rolled her eyes and Kono shrugged. 

“I don’t know,” Sam said with a smile. “I don’t know how any of this works.” 

“That’s fair,” Meka said. Then he turned around. “I think it’s time we turned it off.” 

“Give it some more time!” Kono insisted.

Lou held up a hand. “Whatever attracts the thing, that contraption ain’t it. Thank goodness, if you ask me.” 

“Dad!” Will groaned. “How do you know?” 

Lou started motioning around the living room. “Because I don’t see a monster!” 

Just as he said that, the Christmas lights strung up all over the living room started to flicker. Everyone paused.

Something sinister crawled up Nahele’s back, like there was something behind him. That’s when he looked up to see that the dads had both paused and was staring at the wall behind them all. Slowly, Nahele started to turn. Grace and the others started to as well, but the dads started pulling them behind them, just a blind reach for any child they could reach. 

Nahele wasn’t within their reach, and the wall looked like it was opening up into another portal, like two swinging doors. He heard the sick growl of the monster. It had noticed the portal and was starting to stalk into it.

That’s when a scream filled the room. 

“Sara!” Kono said, clutching her fishing spear. Before Lou or Meka could react, she was off down the hall, rushing towards what had to be Sara’s room. 

“Wait!” “Kono, no!” Sam and Adam called after her, but their eyes were too concerned with the Demogorgon that was stalking its way into the living room. It’s head was darting between looking at them, like it was smelling them.

Nahele didn’t know which boy shouted, “Shoot it dad!” Maybe it was both of them, but Nahele was quick to cover his ears at the sound. He’d seen guns being shot, but he had never been so close before.

The Demogorgon let out a howl of pain, jerking back from what had to be one of the dad’s hitting it in the gut. 

It responded by opening its head wide, letting out a sickening growl. Nahele backed away instinctually. The dads fired rapidly, searing holes into the open flaps. It screeched back in pain, but instead of running away, it leaped forward rapidly. It leaped and attached itself to the ceiling, close to Sam’s side of the small crowd of people, like it was trying to get around them and down the hall. She lunged forward and speared it in it’s leg letting out a small bit of green blood and stopping it in its place and it let out another yell, retreating into the living room towards the portal.

“Move!” Lou shouted, pushing himself towards his daughter. Grace and the boys backed up towards Kono’s room gripping their clubs tight.

“Where do we shoot this thing?” Meka asked, reloading his gun as the Demogorgon shook itself and retreated back into the far corner.

“Headshot!” “Headshot, headshot!” “Always shoot the head!” The kids all yelled out. 

That’s when Nahele saw a flash of yellow beyond the portal, and heard another shot - this time much deeper and broader - but further away. Another distant screech let out and Nahele was hit with the very sudden realization:

There was more than one of them.

“Sara!” He heard a man call out. It wasn’t anyone in the room. There was a short moment as Nahele backed himself behind Lou and Meka, where he saw Danny through the portal. He was wearing one of the scientist’s yellow suits. He lifted his own gun and fired several of his own shots, and another broad shot rang out. While Lou and Meka had gunned down a Demogorgon on Earth, Chin and Danny had slayed their own monster in the Upside Down.

“It’s down, Chin!” Danny called out, but became distracted by seeing through the portal, where he saw his friends and all their children. He shook himself and ran past the portal and Nahele couldn’t see him any longer.

That’s when Nahele started to hear the struggle down the hall. An echo of another broad shot came through the portal, and another one of Sara’s screams, and suddenly Kono was backing down the hall, green blood all over her spear and down her arm.

It seemed there was a third monster in Sara’s room.

The dads let out a call for Kono to get behind them, but the first Demogorgon wasn’t quite down. It knocked Meka down against the foot of the wall, sending his handgun sliding into the portal. Lou was focused on it entirely. 

“Dad!” Billy shouted.

Several more loud shots rang out as Lou did his best to get the thing to stay down.

Nahele, terrified out of his mind, watched as Kono came backwards down the hall as the Demogorgon she had just injured stalked her out of the room. She was impressive, and Nahele was impressed by her bravery. 

“Kono!” Adam called out. He moved to back her up just as the monster bull rushed her into the room, knocking both teenagers to the ground as it bounded into the living room. Nahele saw Lou point his gun towards it and pull the trigger, but it seemed he was out of bullets.

Grace, Will, and Billy had turned towards the bookcase next to Kono’s bedroom door and just started throwing anything they could get their hands on at it, desperate to distract it long enough for Lou to act.

“I’m out!” Lou called out. He looked like he was ready to jump in and wrestle the thing down the ground, and Meka had gotten up ready to back him up.

That’s when Nahele finally decided that he had enough of doing nothing. He had enough of sitting back and letting his new friends fight. They were throwing paper at the thing, ready to brawl it into submission. Nahele had the power to do something; he should do something.

He held a single hand up and grasped the monster with his mind. He had done it before, to coke cans and boxes and balloons filled with water. They wanted him to move things with his mind, and he knew he could throw people across rooms with a push of pressure.

But he was gripping the monster; he was squeezing it.

Everyone stalled in their attacks as it squeezed in and let out a strangled yelp. Nahele eyed the portal, with the idea to push it back to its own home, but the whole point of this was to keep the thing away from Sara. 

He squeezed tighter, and felt blood fall out of his nose. The monster grunted and pushed back against Nahele’s mind. 

In retaliation, Nahele threw it hard against the wall next to the portal, trying to knock some strength out of it. 

“Get it, Nahele,” Will screamed, encouraging him on.

“Don’t let it go!” Grace shouted.

Kono pushed herself up from the ground. Everyone gathered around watching. Nahele squeezed again, pushing at something scary and dark and the monster let out another, worse screech. He knew that was the way to go. The scary and dark was what was hurting it.

So Nahele gathered up as much resolve as he had inside him and squeezed so tight that he started screaming. He heard snaps and cracks and he knew that he was breaking the thing’s bones. Several of his new friends took steps back at the sound, but Nahele took a step closer, squeezing tighter.

The lights around him were flickering relentlessly, and wind was blowing around them from somewhere, and Nahele absently realized it was coming from him. He let up briefly - not enough to let go, but enough to take a breath. He closed his eyes and squeezed tighter than he’d ever done before.

It was an immense pressure, but it flowed out of Nahele like it had an endless source. During the experiments back at the lab, this is what scared Nahele the most. The endless black void inside of him from which all his power came.

Sound muted around him suddenly, and the wind died down too. He opened his eyes to find himself in the same living room, but this time he was in the gray, dull world of the Upside Down. How? Nahele didn’t have an answer. The Demogorgon was dead in front of him. He let it fall, uselessly to the ground. He stared at it for a moment before sound came back to him.

“Sara!” he heard Chin call. “Sara, please, come on!” 

It was coming from down the hall. Danny was standing in the doorway, but he had his eyes on Nahele. 

“Is she okay?” he asked Danny.

“Chin, let’s get her to a hospital, there was a portal in the living room…” 

Nahele turned back to the wall where Chin had written the alphabet. It was an open portal only moments ago. Whatever Nahele had done must have closed it. Or maybe the monsters can open and close them and killing it closed it.

Whatever it was, Nahele instantly felt fear. “Not anymore,” hHe told Danny.

“Then we get back to Steve and the labs,” Danny said. He stepped into Sara’s room. “Chin, come on, we have to chance carrying her,” Nahele heard him say, and only a few moments later they emerged from the room.

Chin had the helmet of his suit off and had Sara in his arms. She was dirty, covered in mud, and had a big gash on the side of her head. She was unconscious and Nahele’s eyes widened at the sight. They had gone so far, gotten so close, and yet…

...if only he had let Grace go to her dad sooner.

“Come on,” Danny said, pulling on Chin.

“Where’d you come from?” Chin asked Nahele.

He didn’t have an answer for the man, but Nahele turned back to the now closed portal in the wall, and then down to the dead Demogorgon that had haunted his nightmares for months. He was no longer afraid of it.

Danny put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up to him, still a little dazed. 

“You did good kid,” he said. “But now we’ve got to move.”

They quickly exited the house, Danny taking the lead keeping an eye out. They headed down a road, and Nahele hoped they knew where they were going.

That’s when that sick, sinister feeling returned to run up Nahele’s back. Lightning flashed in the sky, and the wind kicked up around them. He turned, expecting another Demogorgon. Danny, keeping an eye, seemed to notice his fear when they both saw the flash.

Demogorgons were babies compared to the goliath stretching out over the mountains. 

“I think we should be running,” Danny said.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Chin agreed, adjusting Sara in his arms.

Before the lightning could flash again, they were off.

~~~

 

Steve  
~  
Evacuating the scientists didn’t take much convincing after they saw the silhouette of the giant peeking up over the mountain range. They left a pile of equipment, focusing on samples and the one taking video was trying desperately to catch another glimpse of the thing in her viewfinder.

“It’s not worth it,” Steve tried to convince her, but she paid him no mind, focusing her lense on the top of the mountain range.

Of course when the storm flashed again, she quivered in her boots, but held her ground. 

“Really, you’re just going to stand here and record the thing?” 

“This is science!” She argued.

“All my scientists are dedicated to finding the truth!” Doris argued, walking up on them. “Isn’t that right, Lieutenant Rollins?” 

The woman smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Oh, the truth,” Steve scoffed. “That’s rich.” He watched as, other than the woman recording, Six - standing about fifty feet away with eyes on the giant - Doris, and himself, everyone made their way back through the portal. It was only the four of them.

The giant had stepped over the mountain range, towering over the whole downtown, but luckily was not heading towards Diamond Head - towards them or further west towards Chin and Danny - but towards where Pearl Harbor would be. It hadn’t seen any of them yet. Who knows if Chin and Danny had seen it yet, but Steve wished they’d hurry.

“I will tell you your whole truth, Steven,” Doris swore. “I promise.” 

Steve looked at her out of the side of his eye. “How much did dad know?” 

She took a deep breath. “That you were an orphan who needed a family. He’d always wanted a son. He was happy to be your father.” 

“Why’d you fake your death?” 

Steve watched as Doris eyed the woman holding the camera. “Do you really think now is the time for this conversation?” 

“What happened to my whole truth, Mother?” Steve asked. “You don’t want any record of it?” 

“Of course she doesn't,” Six called out, turning around and heading back towards them. “You and I are too classified for such carelessness on her part.” 

Steve scoffed again.

“I’m sorry,” the camera woman spoke up. “I know you guys are having a family reunion but aren’t you all a little worried about Octopus-Mothra?” 

“Mothra?” Six asked, confused. 

“It doesn’t have wings,” Steve said, just as confused.

“What would you call it?” she asked. 

“Kage… Kaiju,” Doris answered, tone full of authority and certainty. Like this was a discovery of a new species she got to name and not some otherworldly lesser god. 

“Giant shadow monster?” Steve translated.

“What? It fits,” Doris answered. Steve watched as Six rolled his eyes and turned to stare back up at the the giant. “It’s straight out of a giant Kaiju movie surrounded by all those skyscrapers and everything.” 

Then everything in the air shifted. Like the storm beyond the mountains was moving closer towards them. A shift in the wind, a blip in the atmosphere, a blast of energy from somewhere to the west. Somewhere towards where Chin and Danny would be. Steve noticed that Six seemed to notice it too, though Doris and Rollins were discussing disaster movies, of all things, unaware something had happened.

Six turned to meet Steve in the eye. They both felt it, whatever it was. Then they both seemed to realize that whatever it was… if they felt it than… the giant…

They both turned and looked, and sure enough, it had paused in its journey towards the harbor. It was slowly turning, seemingly curious about the activity. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Doris said.

“No!” Steve said instantly. “Danny and Chin aren’t back with Sara.”

“That thing is going to find them, it’s a lost cause,” Doris argued.

Six turned and gave her a hard look, but said nothing.

“We have to distract it,” Steve said, already thinking back to when he was a child. His power worked on it, maybe he could… annoy it.

“How? We’d need a nuke!” Rollins said.

That’s when Steve had a wild idea. “Six,” he started. Six turned to him. “How big an illusion can you make now that you’re an adult?” 

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Doris sighed. Steve and Six ignored her.

~

Six had created a massive, impressive, flash, explosion, and mushroom cloud just off the coast near where Pearl Harbor would be. It was just a flash - no sound, no wind, no heat - but it was enough for it to turn its course back towards the illusion. Whatever the thing was, it was curious. Of course it would be, what would it have to fear here, where it reigned tall.

Steve briefly wondered if it could swim. The implication that it could sent shivers through him. It couldn’t get to their world.

They watched for several tense minutes as it explored the cloud, only to find it was nothing but an illusion. It’s long, spider-like legs stretched tall, and it’s neck and head reached towards the sky for reasons beyond them.

It turned back towards the west.

That’s when Rollins noticed a second giant pearing up over the mountain range. “Look!” she said, pointing. “Another one!” 

“No,” Six said, removing his helmet. “That one’s mine.” 

Steve was floored. The thing was impressive to him, and obviously to Rollins and Doris, but fooling the real giant would be the true test.

The original giant noticed a new companion and reared back in shock. They watched with held breath as the giant changed it’s direction very quickly so it was facing it’s new companion. Six’s giant moved down the mountain at a pace similar to the original’s. 

“Come on Danny,” Steve said under his breath. He wondered if he could reach out and send some urgency Danny’s way without seeing him. He had never been able to before, and he was so out of practice… 

He tried anyway. Six had the giant occupied for the moment. Steve concentrated on Danny, picturing him in his mind as best he could, and pushed a sense of urgency into him. He had no clue if it worked, but he pushed anyway, sending the emotion out into the world.

Which he would quickly learn was a bad idea. The giant’s head suddenly swiveled and looked directly at them. Did it see through Six’s illusion? Or did it feel Steve’s push? Either way, the jig was up. If Chin and Danny weren’t around the corner in the time it took the giant to walk across downtown they were screwed. 

Suddenly a large wall started to grow out of the middle of downtown, but it only hid the giant’s advance from them for a few moments. A single leg poked through the illusion, as if it was an exploratory limb. Once it saw that it was nothing more than a trick of the mind, he moved forward anyway. It was like the storm was connected to the giant somehow, as the wind picked up around them.

Six dropped his illusion and sighed. “Mother, you should get out of here.” 

“I think he’s right, ma’am,” Rollins said. 

Doris, apparently, didn’t need any further encouragement. She put a hand on Six’s shoulder, and then Steve’s, and walked herself back through the portal.

“You should go too,” Steve told Rollins.

“I don’t take orders from you,” she grinned, camera still trained on the ever nearing giant.

In another life Steve would have liked this woman.

“Six!” Steve said. “You go, I’ll wait on Danny.”

“No.” He said nothing else. 

So much was up in the air. Steve’s fate, his memories, Six’s freedom, young Nahele’s right to be a child; his mother wouldn’t make any of it easy. They stood together, side by side, and watched the giant advance, helpless. All the mess that awaited them in the future depended on how fast Chin and Danny got back to them. None of it mattered if they couldn’t get through this.

Steve glanced back at the portal behind him. Hopefully it wasn’t big enough for the giant to weedle itself through. Though a sledge hammer could make any wall fall if you hit it long enough and hard enough. 

“I’m sorry I left you,” Steve said to Six. 

“It was not your fault,” Six said. 

“Still, must have been lonely.”

Six finally looked down from the approaching monster and looked at Steve and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but something flashed over his face. 

“People…” he almost whispered.

Then he held out his hands, low, his fingers held out wide, and suddenly the street they were standing on was crowded like it was Times Square on New Years. Packed, and all with walking patterns all their own. 

Steve tore his hazmat helmet off, so as better to blend in. 

“Whoa,” Rollins said. 

Everyone looked unique, with vibrant, colorful clothing and bags and hats. Steve looked around, and everywhere he looked he saw crowds of people coming and going. Around corners of buildings, in and out of shops. Walking like they all had something to do. Groups were laughing, a child had fallen and started crying for his mother, a man had stopped to tie his shoe, and a thousand other individual actions. A silent, ghostly crowd, but lively. Steve wondered how far across the island he was making the illusion go.

The giant seemed momentarily distracted. A mile or so off still yet, it paused to lean down to inspect the spectacle. 

Steve turned to see an impressive nosebleed running down Six’s face. Sure, he could create the image of a mushroom cloud, or replicate a giant shape in the distance. Apparently this wasn’t a challenge.

But a crowd of thousands of people? Six was looking rough. 

“A crowd?” 

“Sometimes people are the best camouflage.” 

“Steve!” He heard Danny call out from around the corner. They were still a hundred yards down the road, but things were looking up. Maybe they’d get out of this.

From this distance Steve could see that Chin was carrying what looked like an unconscious Sara, but somehow Nahele had joined them. 

“They must hurry,” Six said. “It knows they are an illusion.” 

Those hundred yards was the longest thing Steve had ever had.

Then, of course, Six took off in the other direction.

“Six! What are you doing?” Steve called after him.

“It is looking for me!” 

“No! Stay here!” 

“I will distract it!” Six called back over his shoulder. 

“God dammit,” Steve swore. He turned his focus back on Chin, Danny, and the kids, only to find that Nahele had stumbled. Chin and Sara had continued forward, but Danny had stopped to help Nahele. Something was wrong. Steve watched as Danny and Nahele started fighting the vines. They were growing tightly around Nahele’s legs. 

Steve turned to Rollins, “Go,” he told her, but did not wait to see if she followed his order this time. He took off toward Danny and Nahele. He met Chin and Sara in the middle.

“Steve, who are all these people?” 

“Just go, get through the portal,” he told him.

“Right. Come on.”

“I’m going after Danny! Get Sara out of here!” 

Again, he didn’t wait to see if Chin had listened, and then he beelined towards Danny and Nahele.

A large vine, probably around six inches thick, had grown up and grabbed a fallen Nahele. He was panicking and struggling. Danny was pulling at it.

“It’s okay, kid, I’m not gonna leave ya’,” he said.

Steve was on his knees and pushing his hazmat suit down, intent on reaching the tactical knife hooked on his belt. He got a grip on his knife, pulled back, and started sawing at the vine. Quickly, as if it was in pain, the vine receded. None of them questioned the behavior of the vine, only accepting it as the luck it was. 

They got Nahele to his feet and were off running again.

Halfway to the portal, the crowd of people disappeared suddenly. It was enough to shock all three of them to slow. 

“Go, go, go,” Steve ordered them, and they sped back up. 

In the distance, maybe thirty yards down the street from the portal, Six stood, alone, staring up at the giant, who had leaned down to inspect him. The three of them were at the portal, watching Six face the giant. One of the giant’s massive arms lifted from the ground and came face to face with Six, who took a step back. Whatever it was planning on doing couldn’t be good.

Out of pure instinct, Steve held a hand out and pushed a flash of pain at the creature. It was a small push, just enough for it to rear back and shake it’s head. 

Six looked around, and back at Steve.

“Run!” Steve shouted at him.

Six took off sprinting. Steve took the moment to push Nahele through the portal, and began pushing Danny. Danny was holding onto his arm tight, pulling him with him. Steve found himself overwhelmed with how much concern he had for his long, lost brother as he neared.

Then one of the giant’s massive arms landed directly between them.

“Steve!” Danny yelled, pulling.

Steve held up both arms and pushed against the giant with a forceful push, and suddenly it was deja vu to when he was a child. He pushed enough that the giant moved his leg and Steve let up. Suddenly the giant pushed back. Steve wasn’t expecting that. The force of it was like the force of an explosion. It knocked Steve and Six down to the ground. 

“Steve!” he heard Danny yell after him again.

He sat up, catching his breath, only to see Six was being enveloped by the smokey gas of the giant’s limb. Six’s mouth was wide open, and Steve swore it was trying to get inside him. Steve watched in horror for several shocked moments.

Another instinct took over and Steve pushed back again, this time more powerful, pushing towards the limit he found as a child, and that seemed to do the trick. The giant reared back yet again, shaking its head. 

“I can’t stop!” Steve yelled against the raised wind. “Six!” 

Six had fallen to his knees and looked almost catatonic. 

“Danny! Get him!” he shouted, trying to concentrate on the push.

But Danny, god love Danny, was already ahead of him. If Steve didn’t already have psychic powers, he’d say that he and Danny were connected. Or maybe they were, and it was Steve’s powers all along.

Steve held his ground long enough for Danny to drag Six through the portal, and then he dropped the push just long enough for him to push through himself.

“Close it!” Rollins shouted as he stepped back into the lab on Earth.

There was a small crowd around Sara, some kind of paramedic and a worried Chin and Abby stood over her. The two dozen soldiers had their guns raised at the portal. Steve stepped through it quickly, moving to help Danny with Six. 

Then, of course, because it was just that kind of day, the portal suddenly ripped. The floor under it cracked and fell in on itself. The crack went up into the ceiling and past the floor. The whole thing went from about a seven foot portal to a fifteen foot portal. They could easily see through it now.

The giant had found it, and was making its way through. The first of its limbs was reaching through.

Steve immediately held up his hands and pushed against it, pushed so hard that he started screaming. He pushed pain - every hit he had ever taken, every bite a bullet had ever taken, every taze, every kick, every ache, every hurt. The burn of fire coral, the fire of a dislocated shoulder, the confusion of a concussion, the buzz of electrocution, every moment of pain recalled and channeled into his push. Then he started pushing sorrow. Losing his dad, grieving Freddie, the loneliness his childhood was before he left this place… that grew into the anger of the lie his life had been and-

-and with sudden clarity, Steve knew why he lost his memory the last time. A push of his requires an experience. He wasn’t pushing the emotion, he was pushing the memory. He was giving memories to fight back. 

Fear was what he pushed next. So much of his career was avoiding fear, but walking off to military school, struggling in a pool with twenty panicking navy SEAL wannabes and fighting for air, watching Danny struggle to breathe because of sarin, realizing Grace had been kidnapped, Danny getting shot, standing over a bomb with Danny while he learned how Grace got her name, watching the timer count his life down to the second…

He didn’t want to push anymore. The hug that he and Danny shared after that almost bomb was one of the most life affirming moments he’d ever had. He didn’t want to give that up.

He sat back, dropping the push with a sob. He hadn’t pushed his memories gone yet. He looked over to Danny, taking him in one last time. He had to do this. People he loved were in danger if he didn’t. 

Danny’s face was heartbroken, but after a heavy moment, he nodded, and that was enough of a push in itself. He had promised Steve he wouldn’t give him up. They’d find each other again. He took a breath and began to reach forward.

That’s when he felt a small hand on his. Looking down he saw Nahele, grasping his hand, looking determined. 

“I can help,” he said. “You hold it back. I’ll close it.” 

Steve squeezed the boy’s hand and nodded. Steve would have pushed a bit of brave towards the kid, if he wasn’t already radiating confidence and determination with every breath. 

Together they lifted their hands and-


	11. Epilogue

He woke up in a hospital room. It looked like a recovery room in the lab’s medical floor. His heart sunk at the thought he was back in his mother’s hands, but looking down at his side, he saw Danny leaned over and resting at his hip, asleep.

Steve reached out and ran a soft hand through his hair. He woke with a start. 

“Hey,” Steve said with a smile.

“You know who I am?” Danny asked, almost hopeful.

Instead of a verbal answer… Steve pushed every moment of devotion at him. Slowly Danny’s eyes closed and a smile grew on his face. He reached forward and grabbed Steve’s hand in his and kissed it.

“Found you,” he said.

“You didn’t even have to look.” 

“Thank god for that.” 

~

Crater Labs went quietly in the night. Apparently a certain Lieutenant copied some footage and decided to support the people that cleaned up the mess instead of the people that caused it. There was probably some self-preservation in her actions, but Steve couldn’t blame her. Her actions had the desired effect. The Labs were closed and a small conservatory was set up for all the information gathered about the Upside Down. A few scientists from the project, some outside forces brought in, all set up under the governor’s watchful eye.

Jerry was thrilled to be part of a conspiracy. 

Kamekona woke groggy, and had a slow recovery, but found his way back to his truck. They threw him a party on a boat to celebrate. They all partied and celebrated surviving the world turning inside out. Steve hadn’t had a hangover that bad in over a decade. Danny swore his hangover lasted two days, the baby.

Sara had thirty one stitches in her arm, and was seriously malnourished. Somehow a local news channel got wind of her miraculous reappearance and wanted an interview about the girl lost in the Hawaii jungle. She didn’t say much, and when she did, she spoke about how her Uncle had taught her how to find water, and how to open coconuts with rocks. 

The middle school dedicated a week to island survival after Sara’s return. Suddenly Sara was the most popular kid who just wanted to play dungeons and dragons with her friends in an attic over a garage. She had lived through a traumatic experience and was talking to one of the Crater Lab doctors that had cleared Steve’s rigourous exit interview. She was quiet and kind and enjoyed simple things now, like sunshine and running water. 

According to Chin, Sara wasn't the only one in his house having nightmares. He said he was worried about Kono waking up from fighting monsters in her dreams. Steve tried to help his friend, but saying “hey, at least you know she can handle herself in dangerous situations.” It did not help. But a few weeks later Kono was showing a renewed interest in surfing. That was enough for Chin.

~

“What am I supposed to do now? This program was my life’s work. I gave my life for it.” 

Steve tried hard to not let that sting as hard as it did. She gave her life as his mother to a life of secret wars and child soldiers. ‘Important work,’ she called it. ‘A calling.’ 

“Well, you have a daughter that deserves to know you’re alive. And where her brother came from. Let’s you and I start there.” 

~

‘Pushing,’ as Steve described it once, and Danny forever called it afterward, was fun when it wasn’t used to hurt people. He could slow a running person of interest. He could calm a room of mob boys with guns. He could sober up a strung out witness. He could steady hands of bomb technicians. He could make a six year old with a sugar rush fall asleep closer to his bedtime than nature would have allowed. He could soothe Danny’s nightmares while Danny slept without waking him.

He was going to walk the line between acceptable and invasive pushing for the rest of his life, but he was never going to apologize for making an active shooter fall asleep or steady the nerves of his teammates in dangerous situations. Work was safer. His family was safer. Morality lines and conversations and fights were worth the tradeoff. 

Like the time he and Danny got into it over laundry and Danny was insistent Steve should chill out about the clothes on the floor and Steve pushed disgust and discomfort his way hoping it would make him clean and instead had Danny yelling at him for invading his mind with foreign emotions he wouldn’t normally feel. There was some slamming doors and some cold shoulder and an aversion to any and all pushes for a long time.

Even the good ones. Like love and laughter and joy. Like the ‘snowfall’ - what Danny called it when Steve pushed all his love and devotion towards him. 

“Why can’t I just be mad at you?” 

“I don’t like it when you’re mad at me.”

“Tough shit. Deal with it.”

“But I can make you not mad at me.”

“You do that and what we have isn’t real anymore. So what do you want? Easy or real?” 

So Steve was going to walk that line for the rest of his life. But it was worth it for that soft smile on Danny’s face or a roll of his eyes or a thousand other genuine faces Danny makes at him without the help of any push at all. 

But man, oh man, sex? When Steve can tell Danny exactly what he’s feeling and Danny turns that around on him? And around and around it goes when does it stop? Neither of them want to know. It’s a slide of pleasure that just keeps going and going and going and going and

~

Rollins’ name was Catherine and she was a pretty skilled operator. Steve was impressed by her record, and - unlike most of the personnel that went through the portal on that last day - Catherine was actually security. Which made her the perfect choice.

Six was catatonic. Did what he was told, nodded and shook his head to answer questions, but mute. Whatever the giant had done to him had taken a toll. Whether this was permanent or temporary was still yet to be seen, but in the meantime Steve had him housed in a assisted living facility on the island. He visited every day at first, and then settled into a weekly visit every Sunday. At first he tried to get his brother to talk to him, but soon realized Six seemed to be more content with listening to stories. 

Doris was not authorized to visit him. This update sent her on a quiet rage that Steve didn’t even know was a rage until she didn’t pick up her phone and went missing. At least she left half-assed letter about exploring old avenues and a promise to call at Christmas.

He didn’t know what he expected, and felt foolish for dreaming of anything substantial. 

Of course Six had to be monitored until they knew more, and even afterward. Especially with Doris out in the wind looking for old resources. Steve was intent on keeping his promise that he’d help his brother find freedom. It might be a slow path, but Steve was going to walk it with him. He wasn’t going to leave him alone again, and he was not going to be a lab rat ever again.

That’s where Catherine came in. The few scientists that passed Steve’s inspection were allowed to monitor him from the living center. He put Catherine in charge of keeping track of those who knew. She was in charge of making sure Six wasn’t mistreated, and able to keep a steady, unbiased eye on what was known.

Steve just wanted a life. Free from it all. As much as possible. That wouldn’t be an option if he was constantly controlling scientists and ordering tests and keeping track of specific things and locations and and and 

He tried. Micromanaging everything from where Six was going to live to the vacation schedules of the scientists. He couldn’t do it. He was fearful he’d turn into Mother.

Catherine was the perfect choice, really. A sailor. She’d been to the Upside Down, saw first hand how dangerous it was, fought with anyone who dared suggest they reopen the portal - the first scientist that suggested it was fired, and shortly blacklisted from anything short of high school chemistry teacher. How she pulled that off, Steve didn’t know, but he knew it was enough he could trust her with his brother. As least as far as his treatment went. 

They had a turbulent relationship as children, but most of that was fabricated by scientists. A synthetic rivalry cultivated for experiments. All of Steve’s new memories were almost impossible to unravel, and they would have festered if Danny hadn’t pulled most of them out with pillow talk and whispered sweet nothings. 

Six didn’t have that. Steve wanted… he wasn’t sure what he wanted. 

Three people in the whole world knew what life was like in that lab. Steve wasn’t going to let any of them fall through the cracks.

~

Nahele’s fake paperwork - a unique combination between Jerry and Catherine (a teamup that Steve was learning fast to not question) - was filed and planted and notarized in triplicate and he was declared a real boy within a few weeks of the final incident in the lab.

His adoption went through on a Tuesday.

“Father,” Nahele tried.

He and Steve immediately made a nasty face and then shared a sweet laugh.

“Let’s go with ‘dad,’” Steve offered.

“Dad,” Nahele tried. 

Steve smiled and let the thrill of joy spike all over at the declaration. 

“Dad,” Nahele said again.

Steve couldn’t help it. He sent over a push of pride. 

“That’s how this makes me feel,” Steve told him. Telling people when he pushed was a new thing, proposed by Grace, and seemed to be working for the most part.

Nahele beamed. 

~

Nahele’s education was lacking, and Steve had chosen a combination of homeschooling and tutors for the time being, but he was smart and soaked up new information like a sponge. His biggest hurdle was one hundred percent writing. He was better with a keyboard than a pen. He enjoyed rolling and counting dice with Grace and her friends. He knew bits and pieces of half a dozen spoken languages. He enjoyed playing dominoes and later the Legend of Zelda. Billy and Will got him into comic books. He and Sara took swimming lessons together. He went from a reserved, quiet kid to smiling and practically bouncing.

But, by far, the biggest influence on Nahele’s life was Star Wars.

He was convinced he was a Jedi. He’d shut doors with a flick of a finger, he’d float fruit across a room, too lazy to get off the couch, he was gifted a toy lightsaber and he’d ‘call it to him’ from all over the house. He practiced Yoda-speak on the regular (and it drove Steve and Danny crazy sometimes, but it always made Grace laugh, which made Charlie laugh, and Steve loved it when his home was full of kids laughing.) 

Grace and the other kids started referring to Nahele’s gift as The Force, and the references didn’t end there.

When Nahele learned that Steve was taking care of Six, he was upset. It took a little explanation, and a promise to keep him away from Nahele unless Nahele said it was okay. He called Six a Sith one day and Steve countered with “I’m trying to save him from the Dark Side, alright?” and he understood immediately. 

The situation with Six was complicated, and sometimes Steve didn’t even understand it all, but one solitary sci fi reference and Nahele was cool with it.

He was raising a nerd with superpowers. There wasn’t exactly a self-help book for that.

...Steve might have picked up a comic book habit in the process of looking between the lines for parenting tips of a… literally gifted child. (And if he found representation for himself and his childhood among the pages, hey, an emotionally stable person would say that was a good thing.) 

All in all things were great. Life was good. Sometimes bad memories popped up, emotional boundaries would be crossed, nightmares would be had, a whole room’s worth of furniture and stuff would be picked up and swirled around but that’s just puberty with a kid with powers.

Steve was going to write a book on it someday. 

~

Jerry was a mastermind and Steve feared him. In the week that the portal was open, so many things happened. Somewhere around twelve people went missing and never showed up again. A couple burry pictures were posts to cryptid websites of… something without a face? A police officer’s house was the scene of multiple gunshots being fired, and then a hazmat team came and took away a body. A missing girl’s body was found dead, but then she showed up alive the next day? The governor's task force went out of country when one of their kids went missing? And she was just wondering the woods? What about that series of tourist videos in Pearl Harbor where the clouds just… happened to form a mushroom cloud in the distance and then vanished? So many things happened something must have happened right coincidences aren’t coincidences. Did you hear they shut Diamond Head down for a week afterward? Why would they shut down a walking path? 

“Jerry, what does this mean?” 

“It means conspiracy theories are on this.” 

“So how do we fix that?” 

“I’m going to write a book on it.” 

And he did. It was so wild and ridiculous with too many sources and too many theories that it was written off as a mediocre conspiracy theorist striving to make something where there wasn’t. Other than a few internet holdouts, the conspiracy of Crater Labs and the faceless monster of Oahu died out with all three hundred and six sold self-published copies of Jerry’s book.

Didn’t mean the local story of the faceless monster hadn’t spread around to the island teenagers and told as scary stories over campfires. Steve was sure Kono and her friends shared many of inside jokes.

It was almost a year later at Halloween when Jerry announced the worst of it over, and even Catherine had to admit that all the heat surrounding her and what was left of Crater Labs was gone. 

“People really gave it up?” 

“Oh yeah,” Jerry nodded. “There’s the die-hards. The real conspiracy theorists that really understand how things work - they’ll believe. But yeah, the mainstream side of it. It’s over. You and your son are safe.”

“Thank you Jerry. How’d you do it?” 

“Conspiracy theorists love plot holes. I filled in enough holes that it wasn’t fun anymore.”

“And the ones that still believe?”

“The best conspiracy theorists know that when a known theorist works for the man he becomes part of the cover up for something. Usually in the theories he defends the most. And you, sir, are the definition of the man. A special ops military guy that runs a task force with practically free reign? Oh yeah, the good theorists know I know some juicy stuff.” 

“You scare me,” Steve settled on after a long moment of digestion. 

Jerry smiled. “Aww, thanks boss.” 

~

It had been a long time since Steve had dreamed of the black, and yet here he was. He turned to see Danny asleep in their bed. He turned and there was Nahele, sitting up awake on his bed.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Steve told him.

Nahele shrugged. “So should you.” 

“Why are we here?” Steve asked.

Nahele shrugged again.

They heard a cough and they both turned to see Six standing in his light robe and lounge pants he wore at the living center. Nahele jumped off the bed to rush to Steve’s side. Steve put a protective arm around him.

“You two need to know,” Six said.

“Know what?” 

Six motioned with a hand and they walked a little ways in the black towards whatever it was Six wanted to show them.

That’s when a woman laying on a doctor’s table appeared in view. She was heavily pregnant and biting her lip nervously. She leaned over and picked up a little girl who came into view and pulled her up onto the waiting table with her. She couldn’t have been more than two, and gnawing on a rubber giraffe with her mother soothed her hair.

She blinked, the giraffe falling out of her mouth, and then started to smile. Six lifted up a hand and sent a little conspiratorial wave at the little girl. She giggled and waved back. Her mother looked confused, but ultimately smiled and continued to pet her daughter’s hair. 

Six turned to Steve and Nahele, “Lily can do what you can do, Nahele. Her mother is a single mother, in over her head with a baby with powers. Lily’s father left because it was too much for him.” He turned to look back at Lily and her mother. “Jennifer is alone.” 

That’s when Jennifer started to smile, like someone came in the room. She talked with whoever it was for a bit before pulling Lily to the side and pulling her sweater up to reveal her pregnant belly. It was clear she was in for an ultrasound.

The person performing the procedure came slowly came into view and Steve’s stomach dropped.

It was Doris.

“Jennifer is in danger,” Six said. “Doris wants her babies. None of us should be alone.” 

“No,” Steve agreed. 

“I’ve followed Mother. Listened in. She wants to open the portal again, somewhere else if need be. Apparently it was opened before somewhere in the midwest too. Decades ago. She’s not going to stop.” 

“We’ll stop her,” Nahele declared. Steve looked at him, a little fear, a little pride. 

“You’re a kid. This isn’t the X-Men.” 

“Dad,” Nahele said with a little bit of teenager whine he’s picked up from Grace. “I know that. Six is right. None of us should be alone.” 

“Wo.” 

“What?” Steve and Nahele both asked.

“I want to be called Wo, now.” 

Steve smiled. This was the most he’d talked in over a year. “You’re catatonic, right now Wo. You can’t…” 

“I can be here.” He motioned around the black. “I can keep an eye on her like no electronic bug ever could. We can’t let it open it again.” 

“We can’t let the babies get hurt either,” Nahele said.

Steve sighed and thought of what Danny would say. “We just got our lives, guys. Do you really want to go into a fight like this? All over again?” 

Nahele nodded immediately. Steve cupped his son’s face with his hand. He was really proud to have this kid call him ‘dad.’ He looked up at Wo, who was smiling and waving at Lily again.

“Yes,” Wo said, watching as Lily and her mother and Doris all faded into the black. He turned to Steve. “Are you up for it?” 

Steve rolled his eyes. “You know I am, I just. Had to ask.”

Wo smiled. “Then it sounds like we should get to work, brother.” 

A few moments later he rolled over in bed and groaned into Danny’s back. Danny adjusted against him with a matching groan. 

“Steve, it’s the middle of the night. Whatever it is can wait four hours for the alarm to go off. I promise.” 

“Doris is trying to steal super powered babies and open the portal again.” 

Danny was still, and Steve almost believed that he had fallen back to sleep when, “Well that’s great. How’d you find this out? Was it a dream. You had a dream. It’s okay. Go back to sleep.” 

“Six brought me and Nahele into the black to show us. He’s been following her.” 

Danny turned in his arms a little. “So you’re saying your catatonic mutant brother-” 

“-we don’t use the m-word in this house, you know that-”

“-has been just… spying on people? Whenever he wants?” 

“I mean technically, yeah.” 

Danny paused and looked around the room. “Stay out of our bedroom, Six.” 

“He’s going by Wo now.”

“Stay out of our bedroom, Wo.” 

Steve chuckled. Then Danny rolled back over and settled into his pillow. “Hey! Hey! Are we going to talk about this?” 

“Of course we are. In four hours. When the alarm goes off. Like the normal people we are pretending to be.”

Steve had to admit there wasn’t much he could do at three am that Wo couldn’t do, and was probably already doing. So he curled up behind his boyfriend and decided to let his mother’s next apocalypse be tomorrow's problem.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you found while reading that you would have benefited from a different warning tag, please feel free to mention it so as to help others have better reading experiences in the future! 
> 
> Thank you for reading this mess if you got this far! :D


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